At the start of this year, the Trademark Office began requiring that all new applications be filed with Trademark Center. Trademark Center replaced mostly trustworthy TEAS filing system that has been in place for many years. TEAS is still the…
On August 28, the White House issued an executive order which stripped collective-bargaining rights at several agencies, including the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, instantly reshaping labor relations for thousands of patent examiners. The executive order premises the change on…
I’ve previously written about trademark maintenance scams, both here and here. As a trademark owner, you have a responsibility to maintain or renew your trademark periodically after your mark registers at the Trademark Office. If you use or used a…
I was attempting to file a provisional application today in the USPTO’s no-longer-new-but-still-quite-buggy Patent Center filing system. I am glad I not up against a deadline today. I logged in, and a “Search Limit Reached” error message immediately popped up,…
In April, we had a major success for a client. I am thrilled to announce it here now. Over the years, I’ve drafted, prosecuted, and granted utility patents, design patents, and trademarks for The Comfy. Recently, a jury awarded them…
If you own a registered trademark for a few years, you will receive notices in the mail warning you of a “Pending Trademark Cancellation” or an “Imminent Trademark Expiration.” Be careful when reading these because they may not be legitimate. …
The Patent Office is establishing a separate design patent bar for people to practice design patent prosecution in front of the USPTO. I am generally against this, because I believe it will lead to bad advice being given to inventors…
The Patent Office just announced a SOAR program called “Learn the three-step approach to filing a patent without an attorney and what the USPTO Midwest Regional Office can do for you.” In this program, the PTO teaches inventors how to…
The picture at right showed up in my LinkedIn feed a few days ago. How great is it? This guy radiates optimism and determination, and he has from the moment I met him. Vance Zahorski is the founder of Line…
The EU Unitary Patent will soon come into effect. When it does, it will become a centralized system to obtain a single patent registration that covers many European countries. It is a new type of patent that will be available…