If you are looking for a comprehensive guide to patent law that is both approachable, understandable, easy to read and thorough you have really only one option and that it this book, An Introduction to Patent Law, by Professor Janice Mueller of the University of Pittsburgh College of Law. I have taught Patent Law myself for years, and I always…

Jennifer L. Fessler, an associate at the intellectual property law frim Grossman Tucker Perreault & Pfleger, PLLC, was recently successful in obtaining a trademark for a client for a Second Life® (SL) avatar.  The US Trademark Registration 77110299, which received approval on November 11, 2008, relates to the Aimee Weber avatar that has become identifable with the virtual world content services provided…

What is the harm in allowing software patents? Isn’t the problem that patent offices, particularly the United States Patent Office, are increasingly doing a poor job of finding relevant prior art and weeding out what is new and non-obvious from what is old and obvious? If prosecution were more meaningful, what is the harm in granting software patents? I see none because there is none. We should not tolerate intellectual dishonesty because it is expedient. The trouble is that patents are being granted on “inventions” that are not new or which are obvious. The problem is not that software presents an inherent evil.

Kidz-Med Inc., a subsidiary of American Scientific Resources, Inc., a supplier of the Thermofocus 5-in-1 thermometer, along with Tecnimed SRL, the manufacturer of the Thermofocus, are each denying allegations that the non-contact thermometer has infringed US patents owned by Exergen Corp.  The complaint filed by Exergen Corporation on August 15, 2008, in the United States Federal District Court for the District of…

Packaging diaper with deceptive size United States Patent 7,243,477 Issued July 17, 2007 So you think you have an idea regarding what this patent is by looking at the picture? I can guarantee that this picture provides absolutely no clues whatsoever. This patent covers a method of disguisedly packaging a diaper! See, I told you that you could not possibly…

As the NASCAR Sprint Cup Seriescomes to a close Dale Earnhardt Jr. finds himself in 10th place and has no chance to win the Cup.  While he has had another solid year this year, finishing in the top 5 in 10 races and in the top 10 in 16 races, his fans are likely a bit disappointed and already rooting…

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) the largest AIDS organization in the US and operator of the popular and award winning fundraising “Out of the Closet” thrift store chain in California and Florida, has reached agreement to resolve the issue of trademark infringement with the operator of a private, for-profit Alaska consignment shop of the same name that was cited by Republican…

The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and Google recentl announced a groundbreaking settlement agreement on behalf of a broad class of authors and publishers worldwide that would expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. from the collections of a number of major U.S. libraries participating in Google Book Search. …

The latest version of the Invent + Patent System™ was released on November This system provides an innovative approach to creating patent applications in a cost-effective and timely manner. In the past, an inventor would contact a patent attorney with an idea. The inventor would provide notes, comments, drawings or whatever else they might have collected during the initial inventive stages. The…

PRESS RELEASE: Rambus Inc., one of the world’s premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced it has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) requesting the commencement of an investigation pertaining to NVIDIA products. The complaint seeks an exclusion order barring the importation, sale for importation, or sale after importation of products that…

Did you know that the first design patent issued in the United States was issued on November 9, 1842, to George Bruce of New York? The USPTO searchable online database does not have a text copy of this patent available, undoubtedly because the design patent was handwritten. It is, however, possible to obtain an image version of the first design…

The United States Patent and Trademark Office announced on Friday, October 31, 2008, that a select group of international partners had developed a blueprint for work sharing among patent offices to address the common challenges they are currently facing.   The aim of the so-called IP5 is to reduce duplication of efforts and streamline the patent process.  The vision statement adopted states: “The elimination…

While the Federal Circuit has not said that software cannot be patented, what they did say substantially changes the law that has prevailed over the last 10 years and will render many software patents useless. Moving forward, you can protect software, but only by protecting the machine that the software operates on, which is the way patent attorneys used to be forced to write software patent applications many years ago. What it also means is that to have any chance at protecting software with a patent you will have to be willing to spend signficant amounts of money, because simply put there is no economical way to draft patents cost-effectively given the new Federal Circuit guidelines.

Disposable Boxer Shorts US Patent No. 6,539,554 [ PDF ] [ HTML ] Issued April 1, 2003 Believe it or not, this patent on disposable boxer shorts was issued on April Fools Day 2003! The fact that this patent issued on April Fools Day is rather appropriate and does certainly demonstrate that someone in the Patent Office has a sense…

It is hard to overstate the popularity of Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century world. Today in the minds of many Benjamin Franklin is remembered as one of the Founding Fathers, and revered for his contributions to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional Convention and his role in finally convincing the French to join America’s fight for…