The America Invents Act Handbook: A Guide to the Patent Law Reform of 2011
The landscape of American Patent law saw some major changes with the passage of the America Invents Act (AIA). In her newest book The America Invents Act Handbook: A Guide to the Patent Law Reform of 2011, Author and Patent Attorney, Dr. Mary Anthony Merchant condenses the seemingly overwhelming changes into an easily understandable format. […]
Intellectual Property is big for small business
As a small business owner there are two things that you should hold dear: the most precious of resources that you have – namely money and time. But these are the reasons that most owners tend to either ignore or run in the opposite direction when the topic of intellectual property comes up. Surely, they […]
World’s poorest countries get 8 yrs grace on IP rules
Negotiators have been locked in talks in Geneva discussing giving the poorest countries in the world an additional eight years in which to adhere to international intellectual property laws as set out by the WTO. These rules affect a whole raft of trademark, copyright and patent laws pertaining to reading material, technological products, drugs and […]
Trademark Opposition to “[ ]” Dismissed
The Australian company Casella Wines, the winemaker of the popular wine Yellowtail® filed a trademark application for []. Yes that’s what they did, they applied for the trademark registration for just “the brackets.” If you look at some of their images online when you search their company you will see that most often when [yellow […]
$33.7 Million award to Kodak upheld for Breach of Patent License
The U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City Asia Optical Company’s rejected the appeal of a judgment by the federal district court that awarded Eastman Kodak Co. $33,726,531 in damages for breach of a patent license agreement (Eastman Kodak Co. v. Asia Optical Co., Inc., May 1, 2013, PDF). The dispute involved a 2004 […]
On the wine trail at the Niagara Food & Wine Expo
Last night we continued on the wine trail and visited Niagara Falls Ontario Canada convention center for the Niagara Food & Wine Expo. Attorney Barbara Piazza and her spouse and my wife and I had a great night and tasted a variety of vintages. There were wineries from local Canadian regions and wines from all […]
Patents for Humanity Winners
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Patents for Humanity awards were handed out in a ceremony on Capitol Hill last week. In addition to receiving the award and national recognition winners get a certificate for accelerated processing of future patent USPTO matters. The Obama administration has pushed the USPTO to promote programs to solve long-standing development challenges in health […]
Micro entity lower fee for independent inventor
The micro entity provision of the Americas Invent Act is now law. Now all the rule changes mandated by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) have been implemented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). One reason for the change was to make the patent system more efficient and accessible to the independent inventor. […]
Billionaire sued over counterfeit wine
Ordinarily you hear news about purses bearing counterfeit trademarks being passed off as original. But intellectual property isn’t the only thing has been counterfeited recently. Of the more celebrated trials over counterfeit wine is continuing in a federal courthouse in Manhattan this week. The lawsuit was brought against Eric Greenberg by William I. Koch, the […]
New first-to-file patent rules
The new rules are now official and a first to file system has now been implemented by United States Patent and Trademark Office. This first-to-file is pretty much governed under the 35 USC 102(a) and the exceptions under 35 USC (b). Simply speaking 102(a)(1) – has to do with publications and 102(a)(2) – talks about the […]