When trademark attorneys talk about registering trademarks (not “trademarking”), they generally mean registering a trademark on the Principal Register. We all aspire to have an application show up here, but sadly, we aren’t always so successful. There is another, seedy,…
Trademark registration applications for non-English words present special challenges. Trademark examination at the USPTO normally considers whether there are similar marks already registered that would prevent the applied-for mark from being registered. Typically, the USPTO considers the look, sound, and…
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday released an opinion in a World-of-Warcraft case that has meaning both for the nature of software ownership and for a circuit battle ripe for review by the Supreme Court. The case is detailed…
Your ability to file and obtain a patent depends on many things. The novelty and non-obviousness of the invention may be foremost in your mind. However, other things are influential as well, such as the skill of the patent attorney…
Some law firms provide copyright searches to find out if an image or work might infringe someone’s copyright. Trademark searches are performed to see if a potential mark is likely to be registered or face obstacles during prosecution. Patent searches…
Simply, a declaration is an inventor’s promise – or acknowledgment of the promise – with the Patent Office. A patent application contains numerous pieces of information and paperwork. There is the patent disclosure itself, which includes the summary, background, description,…
Generally, no. Assignments are transfers of the entire interest in a patent from one entity to another. They are distinguished from licenses, which give another person a limited right to the patent. In the US, there is no requirement that…
A patent assignment is a transfer or sale of the entire interest in a patent. That means all rights that were originally granted to the patentee transfer to the assignee. Any other transfer of lesser than full rights in a…
Patents can be thought as a “bundle of rights.” An issued patent carries with it a number of exclusive rights, each of which can be divided up individually from the others – removed from the bundle like one of many…
The law prohibits an inventor from patenting two separate inventions within one patent application. However, sometimes an application is written with more than one invention. What happens after that original application is filed depends on the structure of the description…