We are still in limbo. I got a post card from the IRS telling us that they have received of our materials and that they will be working on it but with 270,000 extra cases to process I am not expecting anything real soon. If you knew of the change and have been filing annual 990s, my hat is off to you. However, no news in this case is really bad news because if you haven’t been filing an annual 990 and you haven’t received the notice, the IRS probably doesn’t know where you are. So rather than assuming everything is OK it might be a good idea to make inquiries.
Therefore, no one should read this decision as stating a general rule that patent infringement is covered under “advertising injury” provisions in a typical insurance contract. Rather, the decision should be read as saying that it is possible, based on these peculiar facts, that coverage could exists for this particular patent infringement claim under the advertising injury provisions. Essentially, reaching this determination on summary judgment without full consideration was deemed inappropriate.
Forever a PC family, IPWatchdog has slowly converted over to all Apple/Mac products. It started with iPhones, then an iPad, followed by 27″ iMacs, and now MacBook Airs. This conversion ultimately got me thinking, “What happened to the old Mac vs. PC Commercials?” Nearly two years ago I wrote an article Mac vs. PC: A Simplistic Yet Effective Marketing Strategy. You remember Mac vs. PC don’t you? The usually frazzled, often disheveled “PC” was played by John Hodgeman and the always hip, cool and technologically advanced Mac was played by Justin Long. The Get a Mac ads which started in May of 2006 and ended in October of 2009 seem to have virtually disappeared. In fact, the commercials are not even featured on the Apple Website. If you click on the “Commercials” link you are now taken to a “Why You’ll Love a Mac” page. Boring. Could it be that Apple thinks PC’s no longer have the issues that have always plagued them in the past? I doubt it. Why do you think we are moving over to “the Dark Side???” Maybe Hodgeman and Long got too big for their roles? Well no matter what the reason, I have one question, “Hey Apple, what happened to Mac vs. PC?”
The truth is that Google bought a great deal more than patents when it acquired Motorola, though there are doubtless some real gems in the Motorola portfolio. As a relative newcomer to the wireless arena, the search giant in one bold move got its hands on the unmatched innovation experience of the longest-lived mobile phone company on earth. The technical acumen and product experience of those thousands of mobile software and hardware engineers will prove hugely valuable to Google as it seeks to dominate the $250 billion global market in smartphones, especially if it decides to become a handset maker as Motorola had been.
In addition to a diverse international faculty focusing on “Enhancing IP Rights in a Time of Erosion” and other innovative IP topics, AIPF offers its Brand of Excellence programming which will include topics like eLawyering, Mentoring, Legal Project Management and Social Media for the Attorney. PWatchdog’s own Renee Quinn, the Social Media Diva™, will present at 11:35am on Tuesday, September 20, 2011 on “Marketing, Brand Building and Social Media for the Attorney.” Renee will also be covering the AIPF Annual Meeting for IPWatchdog.com.
How often do you use a telephone book to search for a business of interest? Phonebook? What’s a phonebook, right? How often do you search in the online yellow pages for a particular business? Probably anytime you want to know how to contact a company of interest. And how often do you find that the business of interest does not have a website? How often do members of the business community hand you a business card with an email address @yahoo.com or the like? In today’s business world it is amazing to see just how many businesses still do not have a web presence.
When seeking to obtain a United States trademark there are a number of different steps to the process, and even after the trademark has issued there are several key events that must be planned for in order to continue to maintain the trademark in good standing. Before moving forward to elaborate it is vitally important to understand that once you file a trademark application it will be necessary to promptly respond to any inquiries made or issues raised by the Trademark Office, which will come from a trademark examining attorney. Likewise, to preserve the trademark in good standing there will be additional steps that you must take after the trademark has issued.
Having a small business means having many challenges, especially in the earliest phases of development. Faced with challenges such as letting people know about your new business, establishing and augmenting your brand, creating a website, designing logos, developing and implementing marketing initiatives, creating and printing real world marketing materials, procuring new clients and customers, building and maintaining a blog, initiating and executing a social media campaign, acquiring followers within your social media platforms, securing office space at a reasonable cost, book keeping and everything else that must be done during the start-up process. This seemingly endless list of tasks seems to imply that starting a new business will most certainly be a stressful and very expensive endeavor. But starting and growing a small business, does not have to cost you an arm and a leg nor does having a small business mean that your business has to look “Small.”
In business and the corporate world, it’s all about who know. When bringing an invention idea to fruition, it’s all about whom you partner with. There are tangible, financial benefits to finding partners who offer services vital to your new company’s survival. These services may come from a designer, prototyper, patent lawyer or manufacturer. In other words, they bring to the table more than the deep pockets of a venture capitalist or angel investor.
You might want to consider some type of up front guaranteed payment to ensure that you get at least something. This may seem overly pessimistic, but it is the job of any attorney negotiating or drafting a license to assume that things will go wrong. The agreement can never contemplate everything, but with respect to payment you need protection. What if the licensee is paying you a defined percentage of sales but then decides to offer your product for free, or as an add-on to a sale, as is common in direct TV marketing? If your product is used as a “come on” and given away for free even 100% of $0 is still $0. That is why some type of minimum payment can be quite beneficial.
There are many ways to enhance your small business, making it look bigger, at relatively inexpensive costs. Everyone has to start somewhere, but think about things from the customer’s perspective. Think about a time when you were searching for businesses that you wanted to work with for personal use. Did you choose the smallest entity you could find, one that did not have a website or even have a business card to give you? Probably not! Chances are you decided to look a little further to find someone you felt was more “experienced” in their field. If that’s something you’ve done, then chances are your small business may loose customers for the same reason. Starting a new business can be a very expensive venture. Following are some fairly inexpensive suggestions that you can execute in order to make your small business look more like an established corporate entity.
You have a business, a website and a traditional marketing strategy. But now you have decide to give social media a try. You feel that Facebook would be a good place for you to reach many potential customers within your target audience. But when you go onto Facebook you notice that there are both fan pages and groups available for use by businesses. But how do you decide which is best for your business? In order to answer this question, you must first know what each each, what they offer and what the difference are between the two.
The question remains in the mind of many, however, whether Zynga is a company worth investing in given its near complete dependence on Facebook for revenue. If you actually read the Zynga S-1 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission you will likely be scared out of your wits by the risk the company lays out in exceptional detail. Facebook is the primary distribution, marketing, promotion and payment platform for Zynga games, and the company generates substantially all of its revenue and players through the Facebook platform. Not exactly the kind of diversification that one would wish for, making Zynga completely dependent upon existing Facebook agreements and the extension thereof. You will likely also be underwhelmed by their IP portfolio, particularly their patent portfolio.
With social media, You Are Your Brand. But what exactly does that mean? If you are part of a larger firm or business, you may be using social media to promote the products and services your company/firm offers, but you are doing so as an individual. Social media is about sharing content and building relationships. The general voice of your company/firm would not work in social media, nor in face to face networking for that matter, without each individual representative of the company displaying their own personalities and adding unique insight which ultimately is what attracts new, potential clients.
Indeed, more then 80 percent of most companies net value consists of intangible assets such as intellectual property. There is an increasing need to protect these assets in order to mitigate risk and avoid litigation. Even the most powerful companies in the world have a need for protection of their IP portfolios. In order to help defend themselves against patent litigation, Google put in a bid of $900 million for the patent portfolio of Nortel Networks which includes over 6,000 patents.