Now you have your shiny, new issued patent, and you want to go forth and profit from it. To do that, you need to let all of those “infringers” (okay, “potential licensees”) know that you have a patent and that they should
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Employees Who Assign Patent Rights to Employers May Have Standing to Challenge Omission as Inventors
Employers do not automatically obtain legal ownership of the patent rights to their employees’ inventions simply because of the employer-employee relationship. Thus, it is a standard practice to require employees to assign their patent rights to their employers in an employment agreement.
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Determining patent infringement damages is complicated and often borders on the metaphysical. Under U.S. law, a patent holder is entitled to damages adequate to compensate for the infringement, but in no event less than a “reasonable royalty.” In some cases, patent holders
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Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Clients often assume that they are entitled to a patent because no single piece of prior art shows all of their invention. In that case the invention may be novel. However, it does not
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Under U.S. law, improved articles of manufacture may be patentable if they are novel and non-obvious. Sometimes, an inventor comes up with a new article that is faster, stronger, more flexible, more rigid, lighter, etc. by using new materials to make the
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Pros and Cons of Apparatus and Method of Use Claims Devices or apparatuses can often be protected by using two kinds of patent claims: apparatus and method of use claims. Each approach has its benefits and drawbacks. In general, apparatus claims expand
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Since we have been living with managed medical care for some time, many people have become accustomed to the idea that they need to act as their own advocate when dealing with medical professionals. Thus, we have become more comfortable with questioning
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The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) has had a variety of procedures to enable applicants to speed up the examination of their applications. However, they’ve generally been limited in some fashion or had burdensome requirements. That has changed with the introduction
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This time of the year it is common to publish lists of everything ranging from the top songs to the top movies to the best and worst dressed people. Last year we published a list of the top 10 misconceptions about patents
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How aware are you of your competitor’s patenting activities? Are they seeking patents that could impact your development of future product lines in your technology area? Are they moving into new technologies that could be game-changers? Are new players entering your space?
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