One Year Grace Period An inventor has a grace period of one year (in the United States) in which to file a patent application. During that one year period, an inventor may place his or her invention in public use or on sale without losing his or her right to apply for U.S. patent protection….
Identical Inventions Developed By Two Separate Inventors An “interference” is a proceeding instituted in the Patent and Trademark Office when two or more inventors are claiming the same patentable invention. An interference may be declared between two or more pending applications, or between one or more pending applications and one or more unexpired patents. In…
Options Available After Receiving A Final Rejection Continuing Application A continuing application is basically an original patent application that is refiled. The second application is entitled to the benefit of the filing date of the first application, and must be filed as a separate application before termination of proceedings on the prior application. Thus, after…
The Examiner’s Incentives The Patent Office evaluates its patent Examiners primarily according to the number of applications they process. Examiners, therefore, have no incentive to spend very much time on any one application, as it is to their benefit to process applications as quickly as possible. The Examiner typically does not take the time to…
Examination Of The Patent Application By The Patent Office An application filed in the Patent and Trademark Office is assigned for examination to a group of patent Examiners having responsibility for the category of inventions to which the application relates. The Examiner is charged with making a thorough study of the application and all of…
Patent Application Components A patent application can only be filed with the Patent Office by the actual inventor or his or her representative. The basic elements of a patent application are as follows: A specification, including a claim or claims; Drawings, when necessary; An oath or declaration; and A filing fee. Patent Specification A specification…
There are several major hurdles an inventor must overcome before patent protection can be obtained. First, the applicant for patent must be able to demonstrate that he or she has developed a new, useful, and not obvious process or product. Since a patent cannot be obtained unless the invention is new, the invention must not…
Basic Types Of Intellectual Property Protection There are four basic types of intellectual property protection: patent trademark protection copyright protection and trade secret. Each will be discussed in order over the course of several posts. Patent Protection The United States patent system was created to help achieve various socially desirable goals. By providing an inventor…
On September 16, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. While not quite a total patent reform, the America Invents Act (“AIA”) includes some of the most serious changes to federal patent law as we have ever seen. Read the Announcement from USPTO Director David Kappos by clicking here. The AIA…
Cease and desist letters may be useful in a number of circumstances including Defamation, Slander, or Libel Trademark Infringement Copyright Infringement Patent Infringement Breach of Contract Harassment Debt Collection (to collection agency or creditor under Fair Debt Collections Practices Act) Legal Effect of a Cease & Desist Letter From a legal perspective, a cease and…
Cease and desist letters may be useful in a number of circumstances including Defamation, Slander, or Libel Trademark Infringement Copyright Infringement Patent Infringement Breach of Contract Harassment Debt Collection (to collection agency or creditor under Fair Debt Collections Practices Act) Legal Effect of a Cease & Desist Letter From a legal perspective, a cease and…
In order to prove a violation of law, a person must prove certain things. Each law has elements. Each element must be satisfied in order to prove a violation of the law. In order to prove a trademark violation or trademark infringement, a person must prove each element provided by law. Words used in those…
Minnesota copyright laws protect a creator from having his or her original creative works copied. Copyrights protect the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves. Creators would not want to show their creative expressions to others if they could always be stolen and sold under another person’s name for a profit. The advancement of society…
Original creative works may be copyrighted in Minnesota. Copyrights in Minnesota do not have to be registered in order to be valid. Even if a copyright is unregistered, use or reproduction by another of the copyrighted material without permission of the copyright owner generally constitutes copyright infringement. The plaintiff in a copyright infringement lawsuit is…
Copyright violations lead to lawsuits. There will be a winner and a loser in every lawsuit. The plaintiff in a copyright infringement lawsuit is a person alleging that he or she had a copyright in a creative work and someone else reproduced that creative work without permission. The defendant in a copyright infringement lawsuit is…
Copyrights give protection to those that express ideas in an original way. There are other ways to acquire a right to an original expression of ideas, such as purchasing a copyright, licensing the copyright, or otherwise transferring the copyright (for example, by assignment). Why Copyright Protection is Important This protection is important not only to…
Trademarks are important in the business world because often a business is selling it’s good name with each product or service. Businesses spend time and money developing a good reputation with the public, or with their specific markets, in order to obtain more business. Importance of Trademarks A business with a good reputation will…
There are several requirements to obtaining a trademark, such as being the first to use the mark, not obtaining the mark through fraud, continuing use of the mark, and using the mark more extensively than mere token use, to name a few. One main requirement is that the mark be distinctive. Is the Mark Distinctive?…
Copyrights in Minnesota are intended to present an incentive to people to create works and share them with the world. If an author, playwright, actor, or anyone else with original creative ideas writes them down, acts them out, or otherwise reduces them to a form that may be shared with others, that person does not…
A person who expresses an original idea has a copyright in the original idea. This gives the person the exclusive right to reproduce, sell, act out, or otherwise copy the expression. Allowing copyrighting encourages people to create and express new and original ideas without concern that someone else will steal away both the credit for…
There are a few different ways a person could become an owner of a copyright. One way is to author the copyrighted material. Another way is to collect and put together the works of others into one collective work. A person may obtain a copyright through authorship in a compilation. A person might obtain a…
Copyrights perform an important function in our society. Copyrights encourage creators to share their creations. Copyrights do not apply to ideas alone, they apply to the original expression of ideas. A person who creates an original work has a copyright in that work. A copyright gives the owner the exclusive right to the reproduction of…
A person obtains a copyright in a creative work if the person’s creative work is original. A person may, but is not required to, register his or her copyright. Registering a copyright makes it easier for a person later to prove copyright infringement. A person is not prevented from proving copyright infringement if his or…
A Copyright prevents others from using certain creative works. Copyrights are established to protect creative works from being copied. The Protection of a Copyright A copyright gives the owner of the copyright the exclusive rights to whatever is copyrighted. This means that the owner is the only person permitted to make copies, give out, sell,…
A person may obtain a copyright in his or her work under certain circumstances. A person may not copy the entire work of another and obtain a copyright in that work. In order to copyright a work, the portion to be copyrighted must be an original expression. However, there are many ways to create an…
Copyright Symbols by Mike Seyfang When someone copies a copyrighted work, the holder of the copyright accuses the copier of copyright infringement. Sometimes the holder of the copyright will make a demand that the other stop copying the material. Sometimes this demand to cease copying will include a demand for the payment of damages. “Damages”…
A person with a copyright who prevails in a copyright infringement lawsuit is entitled to damages. Damages may either be the plaintiff’s actual damages in addition to the defendant’s profits from infringing, or if the plaintiff prefers, damages allowed by statute. Actual Damages Actual damages could include profits the plaintiff lost due to the defendant’s…
Before understanding the consequences of trademark infringement, it is helpful to understand the purpose of trademarks. The benefit of obtaining a trademark is that it grants an exclusive right to the owner of the trademark to use that mark in the marketplace. Having an exclusive right also grants a person the right to prevent others…
What does a copyright protect? Ideas may not be copyrighted, even if original. However, the expression of original ideas may be copyrighted. There are a number of consequences for infringing on another person’s copyright. Reason for Copyrights The purpose of copyrights is to incentivize individuals to create new works or new expressions of ideas. A…
Defenses to trademark infringement allegations include: the trademark is invalid, the trademark has been abandoned, or the mark is not distinctive. A registered trademark is invalid if the registration of the trademark or the incontestable right to use the trademark was obtained fraudulently. A trademark, whether registered or unregistered, is invalid if the mark has…