On the eve of the new AIA patent law changes, most law firms around the country were scrambling to file patent application s before the U.S. switched to the new first to file system, bombarding the Patent Office with a record number of applications, according to data from the agency. Preliminary numbers from the USPTO Read more about New AIA Patent Law Brings Rush[…]
Late last week the United States Senate voted 89 to 9 to send House Bill H.R. 1249 (titled “the America Invents Act”) to President Obama’s desk. The Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve the same version of the bill that the House of Representatives previously passed. Having received the blessings of both houses of the 112th Read more about 2011 Patent Reform (AIA)[…]
A patent gives the patent owner the right to exclude others from using the invention. If another person or company makes, uses, sells, offers for sale the invention claimed in the patent, that other person or company is said to be infringing on the patent rights of the patent owner. The patent owner in such Read more about Patent Infringement Litigation[…]
There are standards that must be met for admissibility of expert testimony in trademark infringement actions. Experts may have their methods challenged before they take the stand. Expert testimony may be excluded as speculative and unreliable if an expert’s methods are not based on sufficient facts or data, are not reliable, or are not applied Read more about Trademark Infringement Litigation[…]
In a patent case, under collateral estoppel, once a court has ruled upon an issue of fact or law, that ruling may preclude relitigation of the same issue or fact in a different suit involving the same parties. Once a patent has been declared invalid, a collateral estoppel barrier is created against further litigation involving Read more about Relitigation of Patent Claims[…]
In order to encourage the advancement of science and technology, the federal government gives an incentive to inventors to disclose new ideas that have been embodied in inventions by granting a patent, a temporary right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing the patented invention without the inventor’s permission. Activity Read more about Patent Infringement[…]
A copyright holder has the exclusive rights to reproduce, display, transmit, perform, and modify a work as well as the right to publicly perform a sound recording by digital transmission. There are exemptions in the Copyright Act that provide for certain exceptions to those exclusive rights, many in favor of limited nonprofit educational purposes. If Read more about Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism[…]
After a patent is issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the discovery of prior art or publications not noticed prior to the patent’s issue may raise questions as to the validity of the issued patent. In such a case, a patentee or a third party may file an application for reexamination Read more about Litigating Patents – Reexamination Requests[…]
As previously described, when a patent is applied for, the inventor must include a specification, including the written description of the invention. The specification concludes with a claim or claims that particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter that the applicant asserts to be the invention to be patented. One of the purposes Read more about Patent Infringement – Doctrine of Equivalents[…]
Patent claim interpretation is the process of giving proper meaning to the claim language. Claim language defines claim scope. Therefore, the language of the claim frames, and ultimately resolves, all issues of claim interpretation. In determining the meaning of disputed claim terms, however, a construing court considers the written description, the drawings, the prosecution history, Read more about Analyzing Patent Claims[…]