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CAFC Evenly Splits on En Banc Rehearing of American Axle’s Driveshaft Patent
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued Orders granting a request for panel rehearing and denying a request for rehearing …
Request for Amici: Tell SCOTUS to Incentivize Original Fictional Characters through Copyright
Some fictional characters are heroes; others are villains. Some mimic reality and others personify fantasy. And some appear in comic books and video games, while others in …
USIJ Report Reveals Consequences of a Weakened U.S. Patent System
There is a symbiotic relationship between innovation and patents. The innovation that we say we most want is cutting-edge innovation that requires time, money and determination to …
A Look Inside Patent Processes at the USPTO: Effects of the Pandemic and Upcoming Changes
On Thursday, July 30, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Commissioner for Patents Drew Hirshfeld and other USPTO staff updated attendees of IPWatchdog and LexisNexis’ webinar, “A …
Strategic Patents, P.C. is Seeking a Full-time Patent Attorney or Agent
Strategic Patents, P.C., a suburban Boston patent boutique with busy practice is seeking to hire a patent attorney or patent agent with at least 2 years of …
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A Guide to Arthrex: Activity Heats Up in Petitions Pending with Supreme Court
The Supreme Court is currently considering several pleas to review the holding in Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew I and Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew II in the form …
Finding Fame in Brazil: Five Tips for Success When Requesting ‘High Renown’ Trademark Status
Since 2014, when a decision of the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office came into force that held trademarks could obtain “high renown” status through a specially-created procedure, there …
Other Barks & Bites for Friday, July 31: Clarivate and CPA Global Announce Merger; Apple CEO Tells House Antitrust Subcommittee, ‘We Would Never Steal Somebody’s IP’; and China Issues Prison Sentences in Dyson Trademark Case
This week in Other Barks & Bites: the USPTO proposes rule changes to the agency’s professional conduct rules to align with model rules from the ABA; the …
Askeladden Brief Asks SCOTUS to Grant U.S. Government’s Petition to Reconsider Whether PTAB APJs Are Principal Officers Under the Appointments Clause
On July 29, Askeladden LLC filed an amicus brief in support of the U.S. Government’s combined petition for a writ of certiorari in U.S. v. …
Pabst Patent Group LLP Seeks Patent Agent or Scientific Advisor with Ph.D. in Chemistry
Pabst Patent Group LLP is seeking a Patent Agent or Scientific Advisor with a Ph.D. in Chemistry. Primary responsibilities include drafting patent applications and responses to …
Judge Dyk Departs from Majority’s Obviousness Analysis on Gaming Service Patent Claim
The Federal Circuit on Wednesday affirmed a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that found FanDuel had failed to prove that claim 6 of Interactive …
Republicans Propose Legislation to Deny Visas to Those Accused of IP Theft
Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) have introduced a bill titled the Protecting America from Spies Act, which targets …
What’s Fair? Senate IP Subcommittee Contemplates Problems with Copyright Fair Use Regime
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property on Tuesday continued its year-long series of hearings on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), this time focusing …
Split CAFC Holds That a State Asserting Sovereign Immunity May Not Be Joined as Involuntary Plaintiff
On July 24, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of …
Patent Filings Round-up: Small Companies Challenge Landmark Lawsuits; Raft of Uniloc/Samsung settlements; Koss Goes After Headphone Market
There was a spike in Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings this week—almost double the average, at 56—driven in part by eight new petitions (adding …
Sage Advice on Rising Above Petty Partisanship from Senator Robert Dole
Former Senator Robert Dole turned 97 last week, but he's still very much engaged in what's going on right now. He just wrote a powerful op-ed, Innovation is …
Squire Patton Boggs Seeks Experienced Patent Attorney
The Northern California offices of Squire Patton Boggs is seeking a Patent Attorney with a minimum of three years of experience in patent prosecution to join our …
The New Patent Texas Hold’Em: Before Going All In, Attorneys Should Know that Marshall and Waco are Different Decks
As a jury consultant with a wide breadth of experience across the country, I am often asked about the favorability of certain venues, but I was surprised …
Federal Circuit Reverses TTAB Ruling on Standing for Petition to Cancel Condom Trademark
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled yesterday that Australian Therapeutic Supplies Pty. Ltd. has “a real interest” in cancelling the registration for …
USPTO Report Cites Incremental Growth in the Number of Women Inventor-Patentees
This month, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released a report titled “Progress and Potential: 2020 update on U.S. women inventor- patentees” (the Report). The …
Senator Thom Tillis: If IP Stakeholders Can’t Find Consensus, Congress Can’t Help
Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) arguably has more pressing issues to focus on than intellectual property at the moment, as the nation scrambles to find solutions to the …
Ericsson v. TCL Lays Bare the Federal Circuit’s Fundamental Hostility to Patents
It has become difficult to understand why the Federal Circuit does what it does in any number of rulings, but its decisions relating to patent eligibility have …
Booking.com Oral Arguments: Will Justices’ Skepticism of USPTO Arguments Trump Monopoly Concerns?
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al., v. Booking.com B.V., (Case No. 19-46) yesterday, in …
District Court Blocks Attempt to Bar New Prior Art References Based on IPR Estoppel
The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on May 4 denied a motion for partial summary judgment by Palomar Technologies, Inc., holding that the estoppel …
Federal Circuit Reverses PTAB’s Non-Obviousness Ruling in View of Prior Art
On May 5, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed a decision of the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial …
Third Senate IP Subcommittee Hearing on DMCA: The ‘Grand Bargain’ is No Longer Working
In the first part of a two-panel hearing today on whether the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is working for the 21st Century, Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee …
Chamberlain Petitions SCOTUS to Review CAFC’s ‘Refusal to Assess Claims as a Whole’ in Garage Door Opener Case
On May 15, the Chamberlain Group Inc. filed a petition for a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the U.S. Court of …
Predicting the Post-COVID Economy: How Companies and IP Departments Should Prepare for the New Normal
The first half of 2020 has brought so much upheaval and disruption that it is almost hard to contemplate. In the future, there will be entire treatises and …
The Consumer is King: High Court Sides with Booking.com, Rejecting Per Se Test for Generic.Com Trademarks
The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with Booking.com, ruling that a generic term paired with .com “is a generic name for a class of goods …
Court Rejects Rogers Test, Introduces ‘Genuine Artistic Motive’ Test in Stouffer v. National Geographic
On May 8, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado granted National Geographic’s Motion to Dismiss Stouffer’s amended complaint in Stouffer v. National …
Federal Circuit Issues Several Rulings Defining Contours of Arthrex Decision
Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued several rulings defining some of the contours of the impact of its decision last …
Congress Asks Amazon’s Bezos to Testify on Use of Third-Party Seller Data
On May 1, Representative and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and a bipartisan coalition of members of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law signed …
Design IP Seeks Experienced Patent Attorney or Agent
Design IP, a small intellectual property boutique law firm located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, seeks a patent attorney or agent to join our growing practice. This is a …
Industry Leaders Reflect on Bayh-Dole at 40
On June 23, the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund celebrated 40 years of the Bayh-Dole act with a virtual briefing, titled: “The Bayh-Dole Act at 40 Years: How the ‘…
U.S. Copyright Office Publishes Federal Register Notice Announcing State Sovereign Immunity Study
On June 3, the U.S. Copyright Office published a Federal Register notice regarding a study it is initiating to “evaluate the degree to which copyright owners are …
Registering your website with the Chinese government?
Doing business in China is exciting and potentially lucrative; however, there are “hidden” traps. Most of these hidden traps have been extensively discussed in the Western world – …
What happens when lifestyle drugs like Viagra and Cialis lose patent protections?
Each year, millions of men rely on pharmaceuticals like Viagra and Cialis for their erectile dysfunction (ED), but they may not be the only ones facing dysfunctionalities. …
The Myth of the 18-Month Delay in Publishing Patent Applications
Starting in November 2000, the USPTO started publishing patent applications 18 months after their earliest filing date. So the simple assumption is that you file a patent and 18 months …
Top Patent Law Firms for 2017
We compiled a list of the top patent firms that are ranked based on the total number of U.S. utility patents that issued in 2017 where the …
Reflections on Taking the Patent Bar Exam
If you are reading this article beyond the title, you are either preparing to take the USPTO’s patent bar exam or you are considering whether you …
Alternate Approaches to the Valuation of Intellectual Property
Techniques for valuing intellectual property continue to develop, especially as access to information becomes easier and more efficient. The practice of valuing intellectual property has only been …
Federal Circuit Affirms TTAB Refusal to Register ‘CHURRASCOS’
In a May 13, 2016 decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) decision upholding an Examiner’s denial of registration based on a finding …
Design Patent Infringement: How to decide if you should sue
First, look at the merits of the infringement claim. They may be stronger than you think, and you can thank a 2008 ruling for that. That year, the …
Top Patent Firms for 2016
A list of the top patent firms that are ranked based on the total number of U.S. utility patents that issued in 2016 where the patent firms …
Beat the Odds: How to Get Your Invention Licensed
Many inventors believe the way to get a company interested in their inventions is to write a letter – and then hope they receive an invitation to begin …
Does University Patent Licensing Pay Off?
Patent licensing or creating new companies is not a get rich quick path for schools despite the occasional blockbuster invention or Google spin-out. Indeed, enriching universities is …
These Are the 20 Hardest and Easiest Art Units
Art Unit 3689 has the lowest allowance rate at 7.7%. Art Unit 3659 has the highest at 98.3%. Oddly enough, these two art units are from the same technology center. It’…
Comic-Con Considerations: Cosplay, the Right of Publicity, and Copyright Concerns
For as much as Comic-Con is about comics, TV, and upcoming movies, it’s not hard to see that a large portion of its allure for fans …
Do Patents Truly Promote Innovation?
Invention, it has been shown, is driven primarily not by genius or happenstance but rather by markets and the expectation of the profit that can be gained …
10 Years Later – A Look at the Efficacy of the Pre-Appeal Brief Conference Program
For 61% of the non-defective requests, the panel decided that there was an actual issue for appeal, such that the applicant would either need to file an Appeal …
The Cost of Obtaining a Patent in the US
Estimating US patent costs is a difficult matter because so much depends on the technology involved, but answering "it depends" is not particularly insightful or helpful. What …
Protecting Ideas: Can Ideas Be Protected or Patented?
Unfortunately, despite what you may have heard from late night television, satellite radio commercials or snake oil salesmen, there is no effective way to protect an idea… …
Patent Searching 101: A Patent Search Tutorial
Inventors and entrepreneurs who are looking to cut costs frequently want to do their own patent search. This is a wise first move, but inventors need to …
The Top 5 Mistakes Inventors make with their Invention
Generally speaking the first step toward commercializing an invention and making money is typically to pursue the patent path. For those new to the industry it is …
Patent Claim Drafting 101: The Basics
When writing a claim it is important to describe how the various components are structured and how the various components interact and connect. First, include a claim …
Moving from Idea to Patent – When Do You Have an Invention?
In order to protect an idea it must mature into an invention first. This means that you need to be able to explain to others how to …
The Law of Recipes: Are Recipes Patentable?
In most cases the typical recipe for a "killer Margarita" or "the best barbeque sauce ever" will not be patentable, but the only way to know for …
Tricks & Tips to Describe an Invention in a Patent Application
One excellent way to make sure you are including an appropriately detailed description that treats a variety of variations and alternatives is to have many professional patent …
Patent Drawings and Invention Illustrations, What do you Need?
If you are going to file a patent application you must have drawings to include in the application, but patent drawings are not the only type of "…
Getting Your Invention to Market: Licensing vs. Manufacturing
Of course, whether you are going to pursue licensing or manufacturing, for the first lesson is to realize that there are no tricks to invention marketing. It …
Patent Drawings 101: The Way to Better Patent Applications
To properly accomplish the goal of having the best disclosure possible you should also not think in terms of a single patent drawing or illustration, but rather …
Good, Bad & Ugly: Truth About Provisional Patent Applications
Whether that provisional patent application can ever be useful moving forward is unknown and unknowable at the time it is filed, which allows for those who knowingly …
Provisional Patents: What are they and why do you need them?
The first thing to say is this: there is no such thing as a provisional patent. You can, however, file what is known as a provisional patent …
Design Patents: The Under Utilized and Overlooked Patent
Typically an inventor wants to protect the function of the invention when at all possible. But what if you cannot get a utility patent because the underlying …
Utility Patent Applications – Content and Substance
In order to obtain a utility patent one must file what is referred to as a non-provisional application or a non-provisional utility application. It is called “non-provisional” …
