Insights
The “Property” in Intellectual Property
Patents, trademarks, and copyrights are commonly known as “intellectual property” or IP. As occasional high-profile lawsuits between large corporations illustrate, IP can be extremely valuable, causing companies to budget significant amounts of money to acquire,...
Protecting Software Innovations: Why Patents, Copyrights, and Trade Secrets Play a Role
Software patents are a waste of time and money. Or are they? A well-quoted statistic states that 97% of all patents will fail to recoup their filing cost.1 It’s also been said that half of all businesses will fail within the first 5 years, and only one third will see...
Know and Protect Your Intellectual Property – Part 2
In the previous article, we discussed the basics of intellectual property (IP), starting with the “what / why / how” aspects of IP: What is it? Why should I care about it? How do I identify it? This article progresses toward the ultimate goal of this series – namely,...
How Long Does it Really Take to Get a Patent?
Many clients ask this question no matter how many patents they already hold. Even for inside counsel at large companies or serial inventors who have been through the patent process end-to-end multiple times, the production timelines of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) are ever evolving.
Patents: 250 Years and Going Strong
The patent system receives a lot of criticism and it is not without its faults. But as a governmental program to advance technology, it’s hard to beat. To understand how it works and why investing in a well-drafted patent can help an organization reap significant rewards (or why a poorly drafted patent may fall on its face) consider this real-world example. Most of us attribute the birth of powered aviation to Wilbur and Orville Wright.
Know and Protect Your Intellectual Property
For most, the topic of intellectual property (IP) is a hot mess of “I-don’t-knows” conflated with “I-don’t-cares.” But it shouldn’t be. Knowing what IP is and how to protect it is fundamental to most businesses’ success, whether they know it or not. A common trap related to this attitude is to “trip over dollars to pick up dimes.” Especially for startups – for whom “keeping the lights on” trumps “protecting my IP” by several orders of magnitude on their wish-lists – this trap is almost universal.
Revisiting the Duty of Disclosure and How Best to Comply: A Refresher
Everyone who participates in filing and prosecuting a patent application encounters the Duty of Disclosure, whether you be an inventor, a technology group manager, inside intellectual property (IP) counsel, or inside litigation counsel (hopefully this is not your first encounter!). Most of the information here is pretty basic, but it is worth a revisit from time-to-time. Also, there are some proposed new procedures in the U.S. Patent Office that promise to make complying a little less worrisome and a little less expensive.
How to Help the Little Startup in the World of Tech Giants
When consumers think of “tech” companies, Apple, HP, Cisco, Microsoft, Samsung, and many other technology giants come to mind. While all of these organizations are clearly innovators, they do not, even when combined, account for the majority of innovation in the United States. The vast majority of innovation occurs in small companies, many of which have fewer than 10 employees. Small, innovative companies live to create new technology. They are passionate about discovery, research, development, and modernization.
U.S Patents Reach a Major Milestone
U.S. Patent 10,000,000 (ten million!) was issued on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. As stated in a recent article from Law360, it took just a little over three years for the USPTO to grant one million new patents. By comparison it took 200 years to get to patent number five million and, if the trend continues, number 11 million is less than three years away. Every year the number of patent applications filed and the number of patents granted grows.
Software Intellectual Property Rights: Is a Patent or a Copyright Best for Your Program?
As our world changes, the world of intellectual property changes with it. Day by day, courts across the country are signaling that the tools and methods needed to protect such property are changing too. Those not paying attention run the very real of risk of getting left in the dust.