2 Jul 2013
The America Invents Act (AIA) has made filing a patent for many people much less expensive. Before the AIA went into effect on 16 September 2011, there were only two ways to file a patent: either as a normal entity or a small entity. In a nutshell, if you qualified for the small entity status...
2 Jul 2013
Frank Zappa is a legend in the history of contemporary music. In the 27 years before his death in 1993, he released a mind-boggling 62 studio albums, just over two a year every year. These albums included the critically acclaimed Freak Out, which can lay claim to being both the first concept album and one...
2 Jul 2013
Recently a global investment management and services business known as BNY Mellon obtained a patent for a new management system that it calls Margin DIRECT. Rather than a product or technology, Margin DIRECT appears to be an idea or system that allowed BNY Mellon to enable the secure management of collateral between counterparties by providing...
27 Jun 2013
Since the adoption of the federal patent Act of 1790, patent law in the United States has remained a dynamic area of legal practice as it continues to wrestle with the unique challenges that could only arise in a field where attorneys arm themselves with engineering and science degrees in order to keep up with...
21 Jun 2013
The past twenty-five years have seen amazing advancement in scientific understanding of the human body. From cloning to stem cells, major scientific breakthroughs have turned the body itself into a kind of technology to be manipulated and played with. But the crowning achievement of this new research into the human body is arguably the Human...
20 Jun 2013
In 1998 Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a landmark piece of legislation in regards to copyright and the burgeoning digital market. Enforcement of copyrights was greatly expanded and providers of online services were granted specific protections so that their liability would be severely limited in instances where copyright was violated by users...
20 Jun 2013
A design patent is a type of patent made on the aesthetic appearance of an object as opposed to a patent on its function. An engine, for example, has a specific purpose or function and this function could be protected by the standard and well known utility patent but the way the engine is designed...
20 Jun 2013
All artists, authors, and inventors today are familiar with the terms copyright, trademark, and patent. For most of these authors and inventors it means one thing: the opportunity to cash in on their brilliant idea. The majority of these creators and inventors will probably prefer to stay hard at work in the lab, library, or...
20 Jun 2013
On Thursday, June 13, 2013, the United States Supreme Court posted, in a 9-0 count, that isolated human genes do not qualify as patentable subject matter. Myriad Genetics, a biotech company, owns patents for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, mutations of which help to increase the risk for particular breast and ovarian cancers. The question...
20 Jun 2013
On October 19, 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (the Board) decision to deny registration of the mark “Rebel” for grass seed on the grounds that the mark is a generic designation of the seed and therefore not entitled to registration. Pennington Seed, Inc....
12 Jun 2013
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s ruling that omission during prosecution of “comparative data” that is not at issue in a prior art does not constitute inequitable conduct. However, the court reversed the lower court’s ruling that found the patent to be invalid as anticipated. Impax Laboratories...
3 Jan 2013
On November 28, 2006, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the case of KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc. The case itself concerned a broadly worded patent claim that the United States Patent Office (USPTO) told the Supreme Court was invalid under Section 103 of the Patent Act and was issued in...