Today, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Google in its decade-long copyright battle with Oracle over Google’s partial copying of the Java SE Computer program. When Google implemented the Android OS, Google wrote its own version of Java. But to allow developers to write their own programs for Android, Google’s implementation used the…
A common event in the career of any in-house Intellectual Property manager is the acquisition of Intellectual Property from other corporate entities or inventors. These include either purchasing or licensing of their intellectual property. Therefore, all Intellectual Property managers should have a formal patent, trademark and trade secret due diligence process. This article will focus…
Whether you are a new trademark owner or already a well-established brand, maintaining and policing a business’s trademarks is a process. Managing your Intellectual Property assets is well worth any trademark owner’s time. In fact, with the passing of the Trademark Modernization Act, trademark owners who seize the initiative will fare better and maintain the…
View Part One: Trademark Modernization Act: What Trademark Owner’s Need to Know Part I Business owners know developing a brand can be time-consuming and frustrating. Finding out that there is some weird hard-to-track-down registrant of the trademark you have been planning to use can be demoralizing, especially after spending time and money in laying the…
No, but you can patent the business process and the technological invention required to make the business method work. In doing so, the focus becomes the technological invention and the business method is shown as one useful application of that technological invention. For patentability, it must also meet the four-part test for patentability of a…
Imagine, you are a successful business owner who has built up a thriving company and created a national brand. Then after all your hard work, another company starts free-riding off the strength of your brand by using your trademark. Having enforced your trademark rights before, you know what injunctive relief and it is used to…
What Are Copyrights? Copyrights are a type of intellectual property designed to protect original works of authorship. This includes original literary, musical, dramatic, graphic, sculptural, audio-visual, architectural, photographic, video-graphic, web design, and audio works. Copyright protects work that is in a fixed and tangible medium like a book, digital recording, or photograph. It gives the…
Protections for trade secrets are used by businesses to safeguard secret information that is critical for maintaining their market advantage. Many types of information can be a trade secret including formulas, processes, designs, instrument, compilations of information, pattern, commercial method, and manufacturing techniques. The qualifying factor for information to be considered a trade secret is that it must be…
Patent Process Requirements In a recent post, I explained what a patent was and why it was so important for entrepreneurs and inventors. A patent is a property right granted by the government to the inventor of a machine, process, composition of matter, or article of manufacturing. To receive a patent, the applicant must demonstrate…
A patent is an intellectual property right granted by the government to an inventor of a machine, process, composition of matter, or article of manufacturing. The invention must be “new, useful, and non-obvious.” An invention’s ability to meet this criteria is referred to as its patentability. Patents are mentioned in the constitution, along with copyrights. …
