A perennial challenge in patenting is to both cover your product and block design-arounds. It is understandably frustrating to incur the expense and disclosure requirements of the patent process only to find that a...more
Is your employee handbook sufficient to capture patent rights in your employee’s inventions? The Federal Circuit case of Omni Medsci v. Apple illustrates one reason why it does not. It is common practice to include, in an...more
8/25/2023
/ Employee Handbooks ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Patent Ownership ,
Patents ,
Policies and Procedures
Dear Patenticity,
We recently found that an out-of-state competitor is infringing one of our patents. I know we need to put a stop to it, but I’m worried about the cease-and-desist letter. I heard that there was a recent...more
Dear Patenticity,
My start-up has a small portfolio of about a dozen patents covering our core technology. One of those patents has the 11.5 year maintenance fee coming due in the next six months, but this particular...more
Can an employee’s unpatentable “idea”, conceived under a duty to assign intellectual property, give rise to co-ownership in an invention conceived after employment terminates? That was the question on appeal in Bio-Rad...more
10/11/2021
/ Appeals ,
Co-Ownership ,
Employees ,
Former Employee ,
Infringement ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Inventors ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Ownership ,
Patents ,
Prior Art