Articles

Posted on Sep 26, 2016 in Articles

Remember Morse code? Perhaps mention of the name conjures up movie images of telegraph operators communicating over long distances, by tapping out “dashes” and “dots” that correspond to letters of the alphabet. What many people do not realize is that Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse code, fought a protracted battle to protect his patent rights. One of his patent claims stands out: the use of electromagnetism to print “intelligible characters, signs or letters.”

Posted on Aug 24, 2016 in Articles

It happened again. Your company is trying to obtain valuable patent rights, and for the second time (or perhaps the third time, or the fourth time) the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has rejected your patent application. Is there an end in sight?

Posted on Jul 27, 2016 in Articles

While the dust continues to settle from Brexit, questions abound regarding how the United Kingdom’s historic vote to leave the European Union will affect the future. One important subject is intellectual property. How does Brexit affect intellectual ¬property rights in the U.K.?

Posted on Jun 29, 2016 in Articles

There are many reasons why an applicant might want their patent to be granted faster. Fortunately, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) offers a variety of options for patent applicants to obtain patents more quickly.

Posted on May 27, 2016 in Articles

Timing is everything—so the ­saying goes. In the world of patent procurement, bad timing can have horrendous consequences. A district court recently held that a patent application was filed one day later than the statute allowed, and the resulting patent was thus invalid. The ­decision contravenes 150 years of accepted patent practice. If the decision is allowed to stand, more than 12,000 patents may become worthless.

Posted on Apr 27, 2016 in Articles

As the relationship between the United States and Cuba continues to improve, significant business opportunities will arise. For any organization seeking to engage in the Cuban economy, the importance of having intellectual property protection is paramount.

Posted on Mar 23, 2016 in Articles

Any person associated with the filing and prosecution of a patent application has a “duty of candor and good faith” toward the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Failure to satisfy this duty can have dire consequences—a court may determine that “inequitable conduct” has occurred and a patent may therefore be found to be unenforceable. Proving that a party has engaged in inequitable conduct, however, has become very difficult over the past few years. So when recently, in Ohio Willow Wood v. Alps South LLC, 2015-1132 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 19, 2016), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reached an opinion that inequitable conduct had ­occurred, many IP attorneys took notice.

Posted on Feb 24, 2016 in Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court is soon set to decide the standard that should be used when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reassesses the validity of an issued patent. The case, Cuozzo Speed Technologies LLC v. Lee, No. 15-446, may play a significant role in determining whether an accused patent infringer can defend itself by arguing that the asserted patent should have never been granted in the first place.

Posted on Feb 1, 2016 in Articles

A U.S. patent application must be filed within one year of the underlying invention being on-sale or in public use, or all rights are lost. Experimental use, however, creates a grace period beyond the one year deadline. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will soon issue an important opinion clarifying when an experimental use has actually occurred.

Posted on Jan 25, 2016 in Articles

The football team The Washington Redskins and the musical group The Slants have recently been tied together – both have argued that their First Amendment rights were violated when their federal trademark registrations were denied. In The Slants’ case, however, the battle over the registration of their trademark began with arguments that racism and the ethnicity of the trademark owner were the causes of the dispute.