Exciting News from the USDA Announced Today for US Plant Breeders By Heidi Sease Nebel The United States’ implementation of UPOV’s Plant Breeders Rights is singularly unique in the world, in that it does not require field trials and testing results. An applicant’s representations as to Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability, are accepted without confirmation in a US application for Plant Breeders Rights, or PVP. When filing for analogous Plant Breeders […] Continue Reading →
Cool Iowa Products Competition By Kirk M. Hartung COOLEST THINGS MADE IN IOWA MVS is celebrating our 100 year anniversary, and Iowa inventors have been making great inventions in a wide variety of technologies and industries for all of these decades. Some examples of Iowa related inventions that changed the world include the first gasoline powered tractor invented in Waterloo by John Froelich […] Continue Reading →
McKee, Voorhees & Sease, PLC (MVS) Celebrates its 100th Anniversary in 2024 By The Firm started in July 1924 when Talbert Dick began his patent law practice at the Hippee Building (now known as the Surety Hotel) in downtown Des Moines. After his service as a World War I pilot, he chose to live and practice law in Des Moines. This patent law practice grew because of Dick’s […] Continue Reading →
Celebrating Technology Transfer Professionals Day By Today we celebrate Technology Transfer Professionals Day that honors those individuals that work to help universities and research institutions advance their critical discoveries to a final product or service. The day was chosen since it was the anniversary of the Bayh-Dole Act, that was enacted on December 12, 1980, and was instrumental in encouraging universities […] Continue Reading →
No More Trademark MSCHF: Second Circuit Rules on Applicable Infringement Standard for Expressive Works By Nicholas J. Krob The Second Circuit Court of Appeals this week upheld a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF regarding its “Wavy Baby” shoe. Central to this case was the question of whether the Wavy Baby shoe—which is a “transformed” version of the iconic Vans Old Skool shoe—was a “work of artistic expression” […] Continue Reading →
Annual Report of the Patent Public Advisory Committee is Now Public. By Heidi Sease Nebel After a year of hard work and an unprecedented number of requests for comments, advanced notices of pubic rule making, interactions with Director Vidal, as well as a fee setting proposal for 2025, the annual report of the Patent Public Advisory Committee is now public. For those who missed our public hearing November 30, the […] Continue Reading →
Improvements in the Brazilian Design Patent Practice By Gregory Lars Gunnerson Our esteemed colleagues at Daniel IP report to us that there are exciting new rules that have come into effect for designs in Brazil. They authored the following summary of the new laws. We believe this summary will be extremely useful to many U.S. Applicants considering protection in Brazil in the design space. We highly […] Continue Reading →
Deion Sanders seeks trademark protection related to various phrases By Joseph M. Hallman Deion Sanders, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, is currently wrapping up his first season as head coach of the University of Colorado Boulder football team. Head coaches at the highest level of college football regularly face challenges in year one at a new school. This often rang true for Coach Deion Sanders in his […] Continue Reading →
Sandra Day O’Connor, First Woman on The Supreme Court, Dies at 93 By Melissa M. Mitchell Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court, has died at the age of 93 due to complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness. As the first woman to serve on the nation’s highest court, Justice O’Connor shattered glass ceilings and paved the way for a more […] Continue Reading →
USPTO Disables First Office Action Estimator By Gregory Lars Gunnerson The USPTO has disabled the widely beloved First Office Action Estimator. The First Office Action Estimator was available to the public. It allowed many of our clients to check the status of their application without needing to communicate with us. The USPTO’s stated reasons for the disabling of the Estimator follow. “In fiscal year 2021, […] Continue Reading →