If you are a trademark owner who has several registered trademarks that correlate to various products in your portfolio, then you may have periods of time in which certain trademarks are not currently being used. While periods of non-use are often unavoidable, there are a few things to keep in mind during these times so… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Intellectual Property
Protecting your Business: Copyright vs. Trademark
Have you ever wondered about the difference between copyrights and trademarks? Do you have a great product and wonder if you can do more to protect it from competitors? If so, this short and sweet article is for you. First, let’s look at copyrights. The basic rule is fairly simple: to be copyrightable, a work… Read more »
Women Inventors—Does this group comprise you?
Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Samuel Morse, Henry Ford, Bill Gates—the list of famous male inventors that many Americans can recite from memory are endless. Mary Kies, Hedy Lamarr, Bette Graham, Josephine Cochrane—do any of these names sound familiar? These are just a few among many women who hold U.S. patents and have contributed significantly to… Read more »
SEPs, FRAND and Antitrust
Courts, patent owners, attorneys and policy makers are currently working through challenges associated with the large numbers of patents, especially in the cellular phone space and other related wireless communication, that read on portions of the industry standards necessary to implement the technology to function with products from multiple competing vendors. Such patents are termed… Read more »
WHERE DID WE GO WRONG? THE IMPORTANCE OF CONDUCTING PRIOR ART SEARCHES ON A REGULAR BASIS.
Imagine your company has developed a great new product, and you have gone through the steps to protect your intellectual property in the product. Now, a year down the road you are facing an accusation of infringement of a patent that you were not made aware of during the development of your product, but you… Read more »
Cease and Desist Letters After TC Heartland—Best Practices
The Supreme Court recently reversed over 20 years of Federal Circuit precedent that allowed patent infringement suits to be filed anywhere that the court could exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendant. So long as, for example, the infringing product was sold in the district, venue was proper there. As a result of the liberal interpretation… Read more »
Clarifying the Distinction Between the “Inventive Concept” and “Patentability” Requirements When Determining Patent-Eligible Subject Matter
In the continuing wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s attempt in Alice v. CLS Bank to define what is eligible to be the subject matter of a patent, two recent decisions have been issued by the Federal Circuit that provide an important piece of the puzzle the Supreme Court left us with more than two… Read more »
Delay Might Put Patent Ongoing Royalties and Injunctive Relief at Increased Risk
Plaintiffs in patent cases are entitled to damages stretching back six years from the date of filing the suit for patent infringement under the Patent Statute, 35 USC § 286 — unless these were barred by laches. This has been the law for over 20 years, since at least Aukerman,[1] which held that the defense… Read more »
The Proposed Unified European Union Patent System
The European Patent Organization has been developing a unified European Union (EU) patent system, which will include both a unitary EU patent, issued from the European Patent Office (EPO), as well as a Unified Patent Court (UPC) for harmonized enforcement of unitary EU patents. Although a specific date for implementation of the proposed system has… Read more »
Revisions to PTAB Trial Rules
The USPTO proposed on August 20, 2015 amended rules applicable to trial practice for the three post grant proceedings known as IPR (inter partes review), PGR (post grant review) and CBM (covered business method), as well as derivation proceedings (which replaced the former interference practice). A comment period of 60 days was set and has… Read more »
Thinking Inside the Box
Spurred on by reports of US companies fleeing overseas to avoid high US corporate tax rates, the idea of developing a “patent box” program similar to programs recently adopted in several European countries has surfaced on this side of the pond. A “patent box” offer companies lower tax rates on income derived from locally based… Read more »
Carstens & Cahoon, LLP Intellectual Property Scholarship – $750
Carstens & Cahoon, LLP has partnered with the JL Turner Legal Association Foundation to offer a $750 scholarship to a diverse law student interested in Intellectual Property. The following criteria are to be considered: Science or Engineering undergraduate degree (strongly preferred) Demonstrated interest in Intellectual Property Law (courses, seminars, club memberships, etc…) Connection to DFW and/or… Read more »
Tropic Ocean Airways: Don’t Draft your Complaint on the Beach
When a lawsuit is filed, a plaintiff must provide the factual and legal basis for the claims to avoid the case being dismissed. How much detail must be provided was arguably changed significantly by a pair of U.S. Supreme court decisions, Twombly and Iqbal, decided in 2007 and 2009, respectively. Before these two cases, the… Read more »
You’ve Worked Hard to Develop Your Brand, But Is Your Investment Protected?
Don’t let someone else steal your brand. Imagine this: you’ve worked hard for about 10 years to develop your brand and name recognition. After years putting in sweat equity, your business is finally starting to take off. It might even be time to expand to a neighboring state. There’s only one problem. A couple from… Read more »
Alice Corp. and an “Abstract Idea”
In the recent Alice Corp. v. CLS opinion, the Supreme Court described a two-part “framework,” for making such a distinction between patents that claim the building blocks of human ingenuity and those that integrate the blocks into something more: Determine whether the claim(s) at issue are directed to a patent-ineligible concept, (is it an abstract idea?) and if… Read more »
IP Trends We’ll Be Following in the Coming Year
As we transition in to a new year, we re-focus our efforts in certain trends in the area of intellectual property law. Four trends are briefly discussed below. Data Privacy and Protection Big Data Growth and Use Post-Grant Patent Review via IPR Patent Subject Matter Eligibility after Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Data Privacy and… Read more »
Patent Eligibility after Alice v. CLS Bank
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued its decision in Alice v. CLS Bank regarding the patentability of computer-implemented financial and other business methods. The Court held that patents that attempt to claim simply an “abstract idea” implemented on a general purpose computer are not valid. Although this is not actually a change in the law,… Read more »
There You Go Again – Infringing my Patent!
Have you ever taken someone to court, based on ongoing offending activities of that person, won the case, and then found he/she was once again engaging in “the same” offensive activity? If so, you are probably aware that a Court Order is enforceable through a “Contempt Action” to prevent the person from engaging in the… Read more »
Practical Intellectual Property Practices for Corporate Clients
Imagine the embarrassment of having an email discovered during litigation where one of your employees exclaims that your new product probably infringes a competitor’s patent he has only just perused. Of course, it is sound business practice for companies to routinely review their competitors’ published patent applications and issued patents. Armed with this information, your… Read more »
Is Your Invention Really New? Summarizing Novelty under the New U.S. Patent Law
In a race, it goes without saying that the first person to pass the finish line wins. But, what would happen if the location of the finish line were suddenly moved back? To a certain extent, that is exactly what has happened to U.S. patent applicants. On March 16, 2013, the U.S. transitioned from a… Read more »