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Tiffany & Co.: One Ring to Rule Them All…and Forever Bind them in Litigation?

Much to my dismay, this article has nothing to do with elves, goblins, or trolls, but an epic legal battle is looming on the horizon, and it may bring new meaning to the oft repeated phrase, “One ring to rule them all”, made famous by celebrated author of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. …

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Intellectual Property & Counterfeiting

Counterfeiting conjures a rather specific image whenever it is brought up in conversation. Most would imagine some thugs hiding out in a dark basement where a heavy machine consistently prints out reams and reams of fake money. While this is the most notable example of counterfeiting, it is hardly the only example; intellectual property has …

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Counterfeiting Law in the United States

Counterfeiting has been a developing topic in the last few years for many reasons. While it use to be that finding counterfeit products meant going through black markets and unsavory characters to reach such tainted goods, today, one need only look to the internet. Whether through eBay, Amazon, or any other website, counterfeit products are …

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Introduction of Micro Entity Status Qualifies You for a 75% Discount on Patents

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 …

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Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and Musical Trademarks

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 …

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BNY Mellon Patents Management Process

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 …

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The America Invents Act gives the Patent Act a Facelift: Establishing Chain of Title under a First-to-File System

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 …

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How the Supreme Court’s Gene Patent Ruling Affects Patent Law

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 …

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The Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Access to Copyright

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 …

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Basics of Design Patents

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 …

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To Promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts

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 …

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US Supreme Court Rules Isolated Human Genes Unpatentable

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 …

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