Intellectual Property

Patent prosecution is the process of applying for a patent with a national patent office, such as the USPTO, assessing their responses, and following up on the application to have one or more [...]

I ordered takeout food recently, and we had a mix-up at the restaurant that made me think of the US patent system, and its recent switch from a “first to invent” to a “first to [...]

You have an idea for a product, an app, or a service, and you want to pursue patent protection.  But should you assign patent rights to your company?  Or if you haven’t started a company, [...]

You can register a trademark on a geographical location.  And there can be good reasons for choosing a place name as part of your trademark: it may suggest a quality associated with that place, [...]

You want to file a patent application or provisional patent application to protect your innovation, and you’re looking for a provisional patent application form.  There’s good news [...]

To apply for a Federal trademark registration, you must either have used the mark in commerce, or intend to use the mark in commerce.  How do you know what is a “use in commerce”, and [...]

The USPTO defines three categories of applicants and inventors: you can apply as a large entity, small entity, or micro entity.  Why does this matter?  The entity size affects the fees owed to [...]

In the U.S., trademark rights accrue through use of the mark in commerce – click here for for my post on what trademarks and servicemarks are. Why register a mark? There are many trademark [...]

In the U.S., trademark rights accrue through use of the mark in commerce. But what is a trademark, or a servicemark? How are marks evaluated? What is a mark? A trademark identifies the source of [...]

There are six patent reform bills making their way through Congress now, with proposed changes to fee-shifting, pleading requirements, the presumption in favor of or against issued patents, and [...]