By: Alana M. Fuierer On December 27th, 2020, the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021 (the “Act”) was signed into law. Despite commonly being thought of as merely a “Coronavirus Relief Bill”, it surprisingly contained much more than COVID-19 relief. One of the lesser-known parts of the Act is the Trademark Modernization Act (“TMA”) which amends the…
By: David P. Miranda This column typically discusses legal topics related to technology, this month we look at how technology relates to the law, specifically our court system. In the midst of a pandemic, our world in lockdown, lawyers are learning to navigate the challenges of working remotely. These circumstances provided the Chief Judge of…
By: Wayne F. Reinke There is some concern in the patent-sphere about the CAFC conflating §101 (patentable subject matter) with §112 (issues with claim wording and/or support of claims in specification) and other considerations. There is no better example of this than the recently modified (twice) opinion of July 31, 2020 for American Axle &…
By: Lloyd J. Wilson There are many reasons you may choose to start your own business, with one of those reasons being that you believe the businesses will be financially successful. Patents may be key to helping you achieve your financial goals, but understanding whether to get a patent, how to get a patent, and…
By: Stephen P. Scuderi Jack Daniel’s iconic bottle design is an example of a famous trade dress, which is registered as a trademark. In order to maintain the value of its trademark, Jack Daniel’s has aggressively and successfully policed its trade dress design against several competitive distilleries. However, Jack Daniel’s may have bitten off more…
By: Alana M. Fuierer, Esq. A trademark (or service mark) is a business asset akin to other forms of intellectual property (e.g. patents, copyrights) and tangible business assets. And, yes, it is true that, just like other tangible or intangible business assets, trademarks frequently are bought, sold, transferred, licensed, and even used as security interest. …
By: Kristian E. Ziegler A patent confers the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale or selling an invention, as recited in the claims of the patent, within the jurisdiction or from importing the invention into the jurisdiction in which the patent is obtained. When most people think of patent protection, they…
By: Thomas L. Sica On June 30, 2020, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in the case of USPTO v. Booking.com B.V. The Court held that trademarks that combine a generic word or phrase with “.com” are not automatically considered to be generic. This decision will open the doors for many website owners to register…
By: Amanda Keys The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has made provisions and extended deadlines for responding to certain matters in light of the hardships created by the COVID–19 outbreak and has also created programs intended to spur innovation in the fight against COVID–19. Under section 12004 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and…
By: Stephen P. Scuderi The World Intellectual Property Organization’s recent publication title: “WIPO Technology Trends 2019-Artificial Intelligence” defines artificial intelligence (“AI”) systems primarily as: “learning systems; that is machines that can become better at a task typically performed by humans with limited or no human intervention.” Inadvertently though, the ability of AI systems to perform…