Trademark licensing hall of shame: why trademark owners need to monitor their licensees Owners of trademarks should take care that they control how licensees use their marks. This should be common knowledge for most trademark owners, as inconsistent or unauthorized use of a trademark can dilute its distinctiveness, and in extreme cases, cause loss of rights. The owners of one of the most famous trademark brands, the New […] Continue Reading →
Federal Circuit changing its domain name effective October 1 According to an announcement on the Federal Circuit's webpage, the court will be changing its domain name effective October 1, 2007. The change from www.fedcir.gov to www.cafc.uscourts.gov will bring the Federal Circuit in line with the other courts of appeal, whose domain names are www.ca#.uscourts.gov (where # is the circuit number or "dc" for the […] Continue Reading →
First lawsuit to stop implementation of continuation and claim limit rules filed As reported on Patently-O (and predicted here), yesterday a lawsuit was filed against the USPTO and its director, Jon Dudas, to prevent implementation of the new rules limiting continuations and the number of claims in patent applications (expect a more detailed post about the new rules later today). The lawsuit alleges that the regulations are […] Continue Reading →
New continuation and claim limit rules: the good, the bad, and the ugly After having some time to parse out the details of the new rules promulgated by the USPTO on Tuesday, a few things jump out. For the most part, they could have been worse, but from the perspective of patent applicants, the new rules will likely result in more expensive applications, narrower coverage, and potentially the […] Continue Reading →
USPTO publishes Federal Register notice of revised patent fees While most of the focus on USPTO rulemaking this week has been on the continuation and claim limit rules published on Tuesday, yesterday the USPTO published its revised list of patent fees. The new fees are designed to reflect changes in the CPI, and are effective September 30. Update (10/1): The USPTO has published a […] Continue Reading →
USPTO not bound by district court claim construction on reexamination; obviousness affirmed The Federal Circuit today addressed claim construction and obviousness in the context of a reexamination appeal. The patentee argued that the USPTO was bound, in reexamination, to apply the claim construction given the patents by a district court when the patents were in litigation before reexamination. The court found that because the USPTO was not […] Continue Reading →
En banc Federal Circuit scraps affirmative duty of care to avoid infringement In a unanimous en banc decision issued late yesterday afternoon, the Federal Circuit granted a petition for mandamus requested by a party who was ordered by a district court to produce attorney-client privileged and work product protected material of its trial counsel, and to permit deposition of its trial counsel. The order was entered after […] Continue Reading →
New continuation rules published As noted yesterday, the new continuation rules have been published in today's issue of the Federal Register. The bulk of the publication is responses to the numerous comments sent to the USPTO after the rules were initially published in January 2006. The introductory material explains the gist of the new rules, and runs from page […] Continue Reading →
Priority claim to foreign filing awarded in interference; disclosure in compliance with section 112 The Federal Circuit yesterday addressed the requirements for the use of a foreign filing date as a priority date in a U.S. interference proceeding. The court awarded the interference party the priority benefit of the foreign filing date based on the "constructive reduction to practice of an invention whose disclosure is in compliance with the […] Continue Reading →
Continuation and claims rules to publish tomorrow, August 21st, will take effect November 1st Tthe USPTO announced in a press release today that it will publish in tomorrow's Federal Register the final rules on continuation applications and the number of claims. The rules will take effect November 1, 2007. The USPTO describes the rules in its press release: The new rules have been modified, relative to the rules that […] Continue Reading →