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...
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.
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.
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.