25 Aug 2014
Inter Partes Review The America Invent Act (AIA) brought new changes to the way the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) conducts review of patents challenged by third parties. Some of these changes include new rules to institute an inter partes review of a patent with a new standards for showing of sufficient grounds...
24 Aug 2014
On August 22, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s findings that Research In Motion Limited and Research In Motion Corporation (BlackBerry) did not infringe U.S. Patent No. 6,970,917 (“’917 patent”), owned at the time of suit by MFormation Technologies, Inc. and mFormation Software Technologies, Inc. (MST). After a jury trial...
24 Aug 2014
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) introduced several new trial proceedings that are now available for reexamining or challenging issued patents. These procedures are an attempt to streamline the process of reviewing issued patents, and to minimize the costs to challengers or patent owners, by providing a less costly alternative to litigation. While...
22 Aug 2014
The issue of successor corporation liability has been the subject of many cases in California. When it comes to purchasing an existing corporation’s assets, you can never be too sure of the issues that will arise once the sale date passes and the agreement is complete. A corporate successor is a corporation that takes on...
22 Aug 2014
Standards for Third Party Review of Issued Patents The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act replaced inter partes reexamination with a new proceeding similarly called an inter partes review proceeding. This process took effect on September 16, 2012, one year after enactment of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. Part of the changes implemented into the newer proceeding include the standard required...
15 Aug 2014
I/P Engine brought a patent infringement lawsuit against Google and several other defendants for infringing on several of its patents. The patents at issue relate to a method for filtering Internet search results. The patents’ main operational features determine the relevance of an Internet search by, for example, extracting text from a web page (known...
15 Aug 2014
On August 15, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in I/P Engine, Inc. v. AOL, Inc. et al, reversed a lower court’s decision granting I/P Engine, Inc. an award for over $30 million in damages against Google, AOL, and Target for patent infringement. The Appeals Court’s reversal was based on...
15 Aug 2014
In business discourse, particularly in California, one may hear the terms S Corp, C Corp, and Close Corp thrown around, sometimes interchangeably. However, each of these terms has a distinct meaning. This article seeks to explain each term and their implications to a California business. What is a corporation? A corporation is a fictional legal...
12 Aug 2014
USING TRADEMARKS TO PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS As mentioned in an earlier post, a trademark is a recognizable symbol, figure, slogan, or mark that is used by manufacturers or entrepreneurs to distinguish their product from competitor’s products. Trademark protection ensures that only the owner of the mark can use the trademark with the designated goods or...
12 Aug 2014
Entrepreneurs and independent inventors benefit from doing their own research and learning about the patent process before seeking guidance from a patent attorney. While a patent attorney should always be consulted prior to filing a patent application, there are several steps that can be taken by individuals before investing in the often expensive procurement process...
11 Aug 2014
Filing a Utility Patent Application Generally, the government will grant you a utility patent when you can show that you have developed something new, useful, and non-obvious. The standard for showing something new is pretty straight forward- that is, that the exact idea has not been developed before. Thus, if you have a new device,...
11 Aug 2014
What Intellectual Property Protection Makes Sense for your Business or Venture? When businesses, entrepreneurs, or individual inventors approach us with their ideas, the first question we seek to answer is whether the idea is one that can be protected. Protection may best be served by procurement of one or more patents, trademarks, or copyrights. Additionally,...