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“T” is for Tesla and Trademark

By Sarah M.D. Luth

Elon Musk recently revealed that his company “Tesla” was almost branded “Faraday.” On December 1, Musk tweeted “Tesla was almost called Faraday, as [the] original holder of Tesla Motors trademark refused to sell it to us!” When another Twitter user asked how Tesla eventually got the rights to the name, Musk responded “We sent the nicest […]

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Fighting Against 170 Years of Prior Inaction—Uphill Battle for the USPTO in Recovering Attorneys’ Fees

By Blog Staff

Oral arguments commenced on October 7, 2019 in Peter v. NantKwest at the Supreme Court of the United States. For a brief summary of the issues, see the author’s previous post here. Appearing before the Supreme Court were Malcolm Stewart, representing the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and Morgan Chu, representing NantKwest, Inc. […]

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Faster Patent Application Examinations for 2019

By Kirk M. Hartung

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been working for many years to improve patent examination times. Processing and examining patent applications in a high quality and timely manner has been an important aspect of the USPTO 2018-2022 Strategic Plan. For the 2019 fiscal year ending in September, the USPTO has met their goal for […]

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US Courts Tripping over TRIPS

This summer, the Australian Federal Court went the other way in Sequenom, Inc. v. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. than the US, finding that the method of detecting fetal DNA in maternal blood to be eligible subject matter and that the patent was valid and infringed. While the Federal Circuit described the invention as “truly meritorious” and […]

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Walking Alone: Liverpool FC Fails to Obtain Namesake Trademark

By Nicholas J. Krob

English Premier League soccer club Liverpool FC may have scraped by with a victory against Sheffield United last weekend, but that luck does not appear to have extended to the U.K. Intellectual Property Office.  Earlier this year, the club announced that it had submitted an application with the IPO to register LIVERPOOL as a trademark […]

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A Trademark Is Insurance, Not Property

By Gregory Lars Gunnerson

It is widely accepted patents and copyrights confer a Constitutional exclusive right. See the Intellectual Property Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I. § 8, cl. 8. Unlike patents and copyrights, the constitutional foundation for trademarks is the Commerce Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3. Thus, the trademark right may conceivably be a property right, while patents and […]

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A Simple Fix to §101 with Arbitration

By Kirk M. Hartung

This summer’s decision by the Federal Circuit in Athena Diagnostics, Inc. v. Mayo Collaborative Services, LLC, highlights the consensus that something needs to be done regarding the current state of the law of patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C §101. In particular, the judicially created exceptions to patentability under 101 are laws of nature, natural phenomena, […]

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Playing the Numbers Game on U.S. Patent Office Appeals and Trials

Numbers don’t always tell the story, but they can provide interesting highlights. The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) tracks various statistics of patent appeals and trials. The mid-year statistics in 2019 provide an interesting look at the direction of the USPTO. Appeal results remain largely the same, with a longer look at trial […]

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IP Legal Considerations for Live Streaming

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If you’re one of the millions of people that log into a social media platform each day, it’s highly likely that you have encountered a rapidly growing number of live streams. Now that live streaming is available to anyone with a smartphone, the potential legal issues and concerns are much more relevant to the average […]

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Claim Construction Must be Resolved Before Making Eligibility Determinations

By Blog Staff

On August 16, 2019, in MyMail, Ltd. v. ooVoo, LLC, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) vacated and remanded a decision made by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California because the court failed to resolve a claim construction dispute before making a patent eligibility determination at […]

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