For more than a decade, the most prevalent way to attack a patent outside of court has been the “inter partes review” (IPR) provided by the America Invents Act in 2012. That is changing quickly. As the USPTO has issued an increasing
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In our experience, startups and founders often treat design patents as a lesser form of protection – cheaper than a utility patent, perhaps useful for marketing, but not really a serious patent. That view ignores some real strategic benefits they can provide.
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In recent months, we have been working extensively with customized AI tools to assist with both administrative and substantive aspects of our practice. Tools like these can deliver real efficiency gains, and in some cases, they let us operate at a level
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The International Energy Association (IEA) released its 2026 Report on the State of Energy Innovation in February. A copy can be obtained here: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-state-of-energy-innovation-2026. It contains extensive data on the global patenting of energy technologies and has some surprising findings for companies in
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It is often necessary or desirable for two companies to partner up to develop technologies. One context that frequently arises is when a component supplier is developing a product for an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). In these cases, the design of the
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If you practice law long enough, you see the pendulum shift between the respective rights of patent owners and accused infringers. The pendulum seems to be shifting, at least somewhat, back toward the inventors. In October of last year, John Squires, Director
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Not only do we help our clients get U.S. patents, but we help them get patents in places like Europe, Canada, Japan, China, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil. In order to prosecute a patent in a foreign patent office, we have to retain counsel
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Patenting inventions that involve web-based interactions between a business and customers or other third parties can be particularly challenging because of a problem called “divided infringement.” The problem is that in order to distinguish the prior art, you often have to identify system
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Inventors typically come to us with an idea of what they think is new about their invention. Usually, they have not done a prior art search, and as a result, are sometimes overly optimistic about the breadth of a patent they might ultimately
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Patents are not cheap, and the process can be frustrating and time consuming. So, it is important to think about why you want a patent in the first place. It may turn out that patenting is not an optimal way to achieve your goals. For
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