The America Invents Act (AIA) created a number of new pseudo-litigation proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the USPTO. While the proceedings, including inter-partes review (IPR), have been in place since September 16, 2012, the specific rules and procedures, as well as the underlying authority, continue to be resolved. On December […]
Continue Reading →On Tuesday, December 22, 2015, the Federal Circuit held that a portion of § 2(a) of the Lanham Act is unconstitutional in a 10-2 decision. The decision was made in In re Simon Shiao Tam, an appeal from the Trademark Office. Mr. Tam is a member of an Asian American rock band called THE SLANTS. […]
Continue Reading →The Supreme Court’s June 25, 2014 decision in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al., was anticipated as being the case to decide once and for all whether software is patentable. Many were worried the decision would cause the demise of software patents while others hoped it would secure the future […]
Continue Reading →The world of copyrights and the Public Domain can be a complex and confusing place. Generally, any work created or first published in the U.S. prior to 1923 is in the Public Domain. However, to determine if a work that was created or first published in the U.S. after 1923 has passed into the Public […]
Continue Reading →There were many changes implemented by the USPTO as a result of the America Invents Act (“AIA”or generally Patent Reform). One these is the post-grant procedure (also referred to as Post-Grant Review (PGR)) for challenging the validity of a competitor’s patent. However, there is a very limited time frame during which this useful procedure can […]
Continue Reading →The America Invents Act (AIA) changed a number of provisions in the Patent Act (Title 35, U.S.C.). While many of these changes have not yet been subjected to scrutiny through litigation, a large number have been the subject of analysis by the USPTO, by virtue of their implementation into the rules of patent examination. Among […]
Continue Reading →Under the America Invents Act, the USPTO has the capability to open regional offices to assist inventors and businesses with their intellectual property needs. Recently, two new regional offices were opened: San Jose, California and Dallas, Texas. The San Jose Office opened on October 15, 2015 and is located within the Silicon Valley’s central business […]
Continue Reading →The United States International Trade Commission (USITC) is authorized by federal law (39 U.S.C. § 1337) to take action against the “importation … of articles that (i) infringe a valid and enforceable U.S. patent.”USITC investigations represent an alternative to federal court intellectual property litigation, and may be especially useful where the allegedly infringing act involves […]
Continue Reading →Filewrapper® previously introduced a new series of blog postings on the value and role of trade secrets, along with strategies to ensure protection. Before diving into best practices for protection this post provides an outline of the value trade secrets can provide to a company or to a particular technology. Often a value assessment goes […]
Continue Reading →One of the basic requirements for the grant of a patent by the USPTO is the invention must be shown to be “new.”In practice, this means that the invention must be sufficiently different from the existing prior art, including patents, publications, and existing products. However, in order for a piece of prior art to preclude […]
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