By Philip E. Hansen The start of a new year provides the opportunity for a highly subjective retrospective on 35 years of patent law — where we’ve been and where we might be going. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas (1965-1969) was reputed to have said that a typical judge’s reaction to a patent is like…
By Wayne F. Reinke About five months have gone by since my last update on the state of patentable subject matter after the 2014 Alice Supreme Court decision and its progeny. A number of important developments have taken place during this time, mostly positive in the sense of rebalancing the outcomes Alice patentable subject matter…
April 30, 2018 – David P. Miranda, Esq. A company is about to introduce an innovative new smartphone and is engaged in negotiations to license a software platform for the new mobile devices. But the licensing negotiations fail, and the smartphone is about to go to market. If you’re Google, you include Oracle’s Java software…
By Wayne F. Reinke People around the world enjoy craft beers. IP attorneys do too, so much so that my firm, Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti (HRFM), sponsored a recent Brewers Association Craft Brewers Conference. You can’t help but admire the enthusiasm and dedication of craft brewers. The industry has been growing at a rapid…
By Wayne F. Reinke I have come across several smaller gaming companies that say they have never explored Intellectual Property (IP) protection. Typically, I respond with some examples of things they could be protecting. The reactions run the gamut from panic to interest to a glassy-eyed stare. This article will address the various types of…
By Stephen P. Scuderi Provisional patent applications (PPAs) were authorized in the United States in 1995. PPAs have a one year life span whereupon they will expire if they are not converted into a non-provisional patent application (a regular application). For a variety of reasons, PPAs are often used as an alternative to initially filing…
By Stephen P. Scuderi This paper will present an overview of some of the issues pertaining to the disposition of patent rights to inventions made under a government R&D contract. As will be seen, without careful adherence to the statutes and regulations governing such patent rights, it is possible for a contractor to unintentionally lose…
By Victor A. Cardona The Good- -Granted patents provide a monopoly for the claimed invention. A patent holder can stop another from making, selling, using or importing a product, method, widget, composition of matter, etc. that meets every word of a patent claim. -A patent is a property right. Venture Capital firms look for potential…
By Alana M. Fuierer What do barbecue sauce, wine and law firms have in common? Each frequently find themselves at the center of legal disputes over the right to use and/or register one’s family name (or “surname”) as a trademark.[1] Indeed, our region is no stranger to this controversial issue. See The Taylor Wine Company,…
By Stephen P. Scuderi The timing and sufficiency of an assignment document can become critical for protecting the rights of the assignee. These rights include the assignee’s right to sue for infringement, ownership right and right to claim priority. Right to Sue for Infringement In the recent case of Diamond Coating v. Hyundai, 823 F….