The international intellectual property landscape has also felt the repercussions that the coronavirus pandemic imposes on businesses and government agencies. Many patent and trademark offices have extended filing deadlines...more
The USPTO recently released its FY2019 Performance and Accountability Report, with contains helpful information about allowance rates, average pendency, and other statistics about its review of patent and trademark...more
On October 17, 2019, the USPTO published an update to its 2019 Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (2019 PEG). The October 2019 update does not significantly change the patent eligibiity analysis, but it clarify...more
Using an invention to provide a service before filing the patent application can trigger the on-sale bar to patentability, according to a recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The court’s...more
U.S. patent law states that any invention that was “on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent” is not eligible for patent protection.
The Supreme Court recently confirmed...more
1/30/2019
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At the end of each fiscal year, the USPTO releases a Performance and Accountability Report, with statistics about patent and trademark allowance rates, average pendency, and other details. The USPTO recently released its...more
On January 4, 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office released new guidance documents that USPTO Patent Examiners are to use when evaluating whether a patent application claims patent-eligible subject matter under Section...more
Is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office still operating during the current federal government shutdown? So long as the shutdown does not extend beyond the first few weeks of January 2019, the answer is yes. ...more
A new Federal Circuit decision found the claims of a patent directed to software license verification to be eligible for patenting under Section 101 of the Patent Act.
In Ancora Technologies, Inc. v. HTC America, Inc., the...more
Historically, inventors who assign a patent to a company or other entity have been barred from later challenging the patent’s validity under the doctrine of “assignor estoppel.” This common-law doctrine has been in place for...more
The Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act, better known as the Bayh-Dole Act, and the federal regulations implementing the Act permit government contractors to retain ownership of inventions developed with federal funding....more
The Bayh-Dole Act and federal regulations implementing the Act permit government contractors to retain ownership of inventions developed with federal government funding. However, to retain ownership the contractor must take...more
A recent Federal Circuit decision provides patent holders and applicants some guidance as to when patent claims that include methods of treatment may be eligible for patenting.
In Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. West-Ward...more
The growing cybersecurity technology industry has quickly become one of the most important industries in the world today. With products that are critical to businesses in countless fields, including finance, healthcare,...more
A common first step in the patent filing process is the completion of an invention disclosure form. The form asks the inventors to provide basic details about the invention, including who invented it, what problem does the...more
After issuing two very negative decisions that called the future of software patent-eligbility into question, in January 2018 the Federal Circuit moved its software patent-eligibility pendulum back in the direction of finding...more
More and more companies who offer blockchain and other next generation cybersecurity technologies are seeking patents to help protect their competitive position. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Technology...more
Many companies who offer next generation cybersecurity technologies are experiencing significant growth in both corporate share value and revenue. To help protect against competition, many companies are seeking patents to...more
With the recent rise in values of cybercurrencies such as bitcoin, and with increasing interest in initial currency offerings (ICOs), businesses around the world are rushing to build value with new blockchain technologies and...more
Cybersecurity technology has become one of the most important industries in the world today. With products that are critical to businesses in countless fields, including finance, healthcare, transportation, public utilities,...more
At the end of each fiscal year, the USPTO releases a Performance and Accountability Report, with statistics about patent and trademark allowance rates, average pendency, and other details. The USPTO recently released its...more
When I send a draft patent application to an inventor who is new to the patent process, the inventor often asks why the claims seem to repeat themselves. A patent application often has one group of claims directed to a...more
If you operate a website that accepts user-generated content, now is the time to contact the Copyright Office.
Many online service providers (OSPs) accept user-generated content. Examples include e-commerce websites that...more
The USPTO recently published an adjusted fee schedule for certain patent fees. The new schedule significantly increases the fees for challenging the validity of a patent in inter partes review (IPR), post-grant review (PGR)...more
In the past year, several Federal Circuit decisions defined situations in which software inventions could be eligible for patenting in the United States. However, two recent Federal Circuit decisions show that the path for...more