The Briefing: Trademark Basics - Protecting Names, Logos, and Brands in Entertainment
The Rise of OTAs in Defense Contracting: Opportunities, Risks, and What Contractors Need to Know
Money-Saving Licensing Tips for Startups
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Trending Now: An IP Podcast - Cease and Desist Letters: Protecting Your Intellectual Property the Right Way
PODCAST: PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Trending Now: An IP Podcast - Cease and Desist Letters: Protecting Your Intellectual Property the Right Way
A Counterintuitive Approach to Winning Without Litigation: One-on-One with Haley Morrison
SkadBytes Podcast | Tech’s Shifting Landscape: Five Trends Shaping the Conversation
Tips for Conducting a Trade Secret Assessment with Rob Jensen
Will I Get Sued if I Create Another Hospital Drama? — No Infringement Intended Podcast
Essential Steps to Sell Your Business
Mickey Mouse: un ratón con abogado
(Podcast) The Briefing: The Ninth Circuit Puts the Brakes on Eleanor’s Copyright Claim
The Briefing: The Ninth Circuit Puts the Brakes on Eleanor’s Copyright Claim
Unexpected Paths to IP Law with Dan Young and Colin White
Why Can't I Clean the Graffiti Off My Walls? — No Infringement Intended Podcast
(Podcast) The Briefing: Trademark Smoked: The Fall of General Cigar’s COHIBA Registration
The Briefing: Trademark Smoked: The Fall of General Cigar’s COHIBA Registration
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Trending Now: An IP Podcast - NCAA Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) Update – Effects of House Settlement
How IP Can Fuel Your Startup's Growth
The United States patent system underwent a significant change with the enactment of the First-Inventor-to-File (FITF) provision of the America Invents Act, which became effective on March 16, 2013. The FITF provision...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board determined that a reference could be used as prior art because patent owner failed to provide sufficient evidence that the prior art’s disclosure was invented by all four named inventors, and...more
On September 30, 2024, the USPTO issued a final rule governing the process for Director Review of proceedings under the AIA. This formalized the USPTO’s interim Director Review procedures implemented by the USPTO following...more
In 2023, global investments in energy transition projects surged to approximately $1.7 trillion. This unprecedented investment level underscores the transformative shift toward cleaner energy sources and technologies....more
Precedential Decisions - Penumbra, Inc. v. RapidPulse, Inc., IPR2021-01466, Paper 34 (March 10, 2023) (designated: November 15, 2023) (regarding prior art status under AIA § 102) The Director designated as precedential...more
This case addresses certain implications of the Laehy-Smith America Invests Act (AIA), namely whether patents with a filing date after March 16, 2013 (pure AIA patents) may be part of an interference proceeding under pre-AIA,...more
SNIPR Technologies Limited v. Rockefeller University, Appeal No. 2022-1260 (Fed. Cir. July 14, 2023) Our case of the week addresses a wrinkle in the law concerning disputes between parties that filed patent applications...more
Be careful of showing your claimed inventions at tradeshows. On February 15, 2023, the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) affirmed a summary judgment ruling that, by merely showcasing an embodying device at an industry event (the...more
As part of the recovery from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit took steps to return to normal operations. It began requiring live oral arguments in August 2022 and, by November,...more
[co-author: Jamie Dohopolski] Last year, the continued global COVID-19 pandemic forced American courts to largely continue the procedures set in place in 2020. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was no...more
USPTO Delays Fee for Failure to File Applications in DOCX Format - In a notice published in the Federal Register earlier today (86 Fed. Reg. 66192), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that it was delaying the...more
We recently reported on bipartisan legislation introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy (D) and John Cornyn (R) to significantly revamp certain features of the America Invents Act (AIA), ten years after its debut. This proposed...more
Ten years ago, on September 16, 2011, the America Invents Act (“AIA”) became law. This article is the second in a multi-part series of articles on the significant changes introduced by the AIA and the results of those...more
A patent is eligible for post-grant review (“PGR”) only if the patent is subject to the first-inventor-to-file provisions of the AIA. In Tricam Indus., Inc. v. Little Giant Ladder Sys., LLC, the PTAB explained that...more
Once a month, we cover an interesting topic. This month, senior associates Richard Goldstucker and Megan Bussey discuss the commercialization of an invention and provide an overview of the "on-sale bar" provision....more
Increased employee mobility, health challenges, and the economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic may result in more inventors than usual being unavailable to assign patent rights. Fortunately, applicants may procure a...more
This program will cover important patent and trademark trends and cases in 2020, including: - The Trademark Modernization (TM) Act of 2020 - Counterfeiting: Tiffany v. Costco - Transformation from Generic to Protectable:...more
Often companies are faced with a dilemma in protecting their IP—should the company disclose its IP to the world and seek a patent that will protect its IP for a set number of years? Or, should the company keep the IP a secret...more
Technology and medical companies around the world are rising to meet the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, in many cases turning to artificial intelligence (“AI”) and super computers in their efforts to develop...more
The America Invents Act (AIA) ushered in an era of Patent Office trials to adjudicate the validity of issued patents. The AIA, however, created an additional, lesser used, avenue to address patent validity. This procedure is...more
Trade secret and patent laws both provide intellectual property protection but have conflicting requirements that can impose challenges for a company seeking to maximize its protection under each right. Originally...more
In the continuously evolving world of intellectual property law, 2018 was another milestone year. The US Supreme Court and Federal Circuit continued to define key aspects of intellectual property (IP) law including: •...more
On March 21, 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) instituted the first AIA derivation proceeding to determine whether patent claims to a window frame component should be canceled because they were derived from...more
Patenting - Patenting generally offers a superior means for legally protecting most inventions, particularly since: • copyright, when available, does not provide a broad scope of protection; and • the...more