Patent Law

USPTO Focuses on Automobile Design Protection

Posted on May 06, 2008
Starting today, the USPTO is kicking off a series of meetings with major automobile manufacturers to discuss intellectual property protection related to the designs of automobiles. The first meeting, hosted by Margaret J.A. Peterlin, the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO, will include representatives from GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, and the Auto Alliance, with future planned meetings to include insurance companies, independent parts manufacturers, and various consumer groups...

WIPO Magazine ? Current Issue

Posted on May 05, 2008
I came across this interesting resource and thought it would be worthy of sharing. Since 1998, the World Intellectual Property Organization (?WIPO?) has published an online and print version of WIPO Magazine, covering various intellectual-property related issues...

Japan Changes Currency Due to Copyright Infringement

Posted on May 02, 2008
According to a recent Yahoo! News article (link below), the Japanese finance ministry has been forced to stop production of one of its latest commemorative coins based on a claim of copyright infringement. The original commemorative coin showed bronze sculptures of a family standing in Brazil to celebrate 100 years of Japanese emigration to Brazil, with an image of the sculptures appearing on approximately 5 million minted 500 yen coins...

EPO Places Oral Proceedings Calendar Online

Posted on April 30, 2008
Yesterday the European Patent Office (EPO) announced that it has made the current Oral proceedings calendar available from the EPO website. As noted within the EPO announcement (link below), one "can search for oral proceedings by patent application number, date or location," and that "[t]he extended search enables you to combine fields such the name of the applicant(s) or proprietor(s) and opponent(s) or representative(s)...

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USPTO Announces EPO PPH

Posted on April 29, 2008
On Monday, the USPTO announced its latest Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program, the latest being an initiative with the European Patent Office (EPO). According to the USPTO announcement (link below), ?[t]he Patent Prosecution Highway will leverage fast-track patent examination procedures already available in both offices to allow applicants to obtain corresponding patents faster and more efficiently,? and ?[i]t also will permit each office to exploit the work previously done by the other office and reduce duplication...

USPTO Updates TESS

Posted on April 25, 2008
The USPTO recently announced two new features to its Trademark Electronic Search System (?TESS?). The first feature (image list) allows drawings of marks to appear in three columns on search results, whereby the ?Image List? button can be clicked after a search to enable this new feature...

USPTO Announces i-©®eaTM Curriculum

Posted on April 23, 2008
Last week, the USPTO announced its latest educational effort, the i-©®eaTM Curriculum. As noted by the USPTO (link below), the launch of this new curriculum is to ?inspire[] students to be creative and teach[] them about the value of patents, trademarks, and copyrights, as well as the importance of respecting other?s intellectual property,? and is ?a valuable resource for teachers to introduce students to the inventive process through cross-curricular activities, inspirational stories of young inventors, and practical hands-on patent and trademark searching on the Internet...

Patriots to Obtain 19-0?

Posted on April 22, 2008
As reported by The Smoking Gun, the New England Patriots, after falling one win shy of a perfect football season last year, appear to continue moving forward with their trademark applications for ?19-0? and ?19-0 The Perfect Season.? These two pending applications (U...

USPTO Announces ?Financial Profile? System

Posted on April 17, 2008
Earlier this week, the USPTO announced the introduction of its new ?Financial Profile? system from the USPTO website to provide ?customers with secure, fast, and convenient access to payment history information anytime? from the internet. According to the USPTO, the Financial Profile system will help ?with reconciling your payment activities by providing detailed transaction information and reports for all fees paid to the USPTO,? whereby upon registration, a user may utilize any number of payment types, view and print detailed transaction information, view, print, and download monthly statements, and perform specific searches based upon an attorney docket number, an application number, a transaction type, and/or a payment amount...

WIPO Facilitates IP Education in Mexico

Posted on April 16, 2008
It was announced late last week that the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has entered into two agreements to advance intellectual property education in Mexico. The two agreements, entered into with the Technological Institute of Monterrey and the University of Guadalajara, are expected to increase patent filings from those two institutions and provide the faculty and students with additional insight into IP protection in Mexico...

USPTO to Host Independent Inventor Online Chat This Week

Posted on April 14, 2008
On Tuesday, April 15th, the USPTO will be hosting its next live online chat for independent inventors. This chat, to be held from 2:00 to 3:00PM EST, will include a number of senior officials from the USPTO answering questions in a continuing effort by the USPTO to ?promote and protect America?s independent inventors,? with the effort including ?educating inventor-entrepreneurs about the risks of working with invention development companies...

Trademark Expo Begins Today

Posted on April 10, 2008
Opening today and running through Saturday, the USPTO is hosting its National Trademark Expo at the main atrium of the USPTO campus in Alexandria, Virginia. According to the USPTO announcement, several speakers, including Jon Dudas (Under Secretary for Intellectual Property at the USPTO), Lynne Beresford (the Commissioner for Trademarks at the USPTO), and William Euille (the Mayor of the City of Alexandria) will provide comments regarding the impact of trademarks in the United States...

USPTO Tidbits

Posted on April 09, 2008
The USPTO has issued a number of news releases in the past week ? here is a brief summary of several notable ones.The International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has informed the USPTO that the search fee required by the European Patent Office (EPO) when the EPO acts as the International Searching Authority (ISA) has increased to $2,496...

USPTO Hosting Public PAIR Webcast

Posted on April 07, 2008
In response to the ?data-mining? of USPTO Public PAIR data by a number of online organizations, the USPTO will be hosting a webcast on Wednesday, April 30th, to discuss a more permanent fix to this bandwidth problem. As you may have experienced, and has been discussed previously on the DDIP blog, access to Public PAIR was sporadic because of a number of entities engaging in ?bulk downloads of massive amounts of data? strained the Public PAIR system...

DDIP Spring Break - Posts on the Daily Dose of IP Blog will resume on Monday, April 7th - Enjoy Spring Break!

Posted on March 31, 2008

USPTO/GWU MBA Competition: Fix the Backlog

Posted on March 27, 2008
The USPTO announced that it has partnered with the George Washington University School of Business to sponsor the 2008 International Business Case Competition, with this year?s topic matching business school teams against one another to find a solution to the USPTO?s current patent pendency and backlog problems...

WIPO Announces IP Management Seminar with the Kellogg School of Management

Posted on March 26, 2008
Last week, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced that it has teamed up with the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago, Illinois, to host an upcoming executive program on intellectual property management. This program, entitled ?Strategies for Management of Intellectual Property,? will be held from June 9-12, 2008, and according to the WIPO press release (link below), the program ?will offer an opportunity to gain a practical understanding of the various strategies and approaches to enable effective development and optimization of a company?s intellectual property assets, to formulate effective IP-focused business strategies and to successfully negotiate IP licensing agreements with business partners...

USPTO to Host New China IP Seminar

Posted on March 24, 2008
The USPTO recently announced that it will host a seminar next month regarding the protection of IP in China. The seminar, entitled ?USPTO China Road Show,? will be held from April 2-3, 2008, at the Houston Hobby Airport Marriott Hotel in Houston, Texas, and will focus on teaching businesses how to protect against intellectual property theft from China...

New Trademark Description Rule to Take Effect May 13, 2008

Posted on March 19, 2008
Last Friday, the USPTO announced via the Federal Register (excerpt link below) that it will be instituting new trademark rules of practice to require written descriptions of non-standard character trademarks. In October, 2007, the USPTO proposed the new rules and solicited comments from the public, and in response, the USPTO finalized the rule changes (as noted within the Federal Register) to require ?a description of the mark in all applications to register a mark not in standard characters? with the goal that ?[t]his requirement will facilitate more accurate and comprehensive design coding and pseudo-mark data determinations, and therefore will promote better searchability of marks within the USPTO database...

USPTO Posts 2/28/2008 Online Chat Transcript

Posted on March 18, 2008
The USPTO recently posted a transcript of its February 28, 2008, independent inventor online chat. Although many questions were repeated from prior online chats (like the differences between trademarks and copyrights, inquiries about locating patent attorneys, etc...

USPTO Announces Nanotechnology Meeting

Posted on March 13, 2008
On Wednesday, the USPTO announced its upcoming Nanotechnology Customer Partnership meeting to be held on April 22, 2008, at the South Auditorium of the Madison Building at the USPTO. According to the USPTO announcement (link below), "[t]his Nanotechnology Customer Partnership initiative is designed and developed to be a forum to share ideas, experiences, and insights between individual users and the USPTO...

EPO Online Training Schedule Updated

Posted on March 12, 2008
The European Patent Office (EPO) announced yesterday that it has updated its online training schedule for the month of April. As noted in the EPO news release (link below), the EPO will be resuming its ?virtual classrooms? training events next month, the first event to be held of April 1st...

Utah Amends Controversial Trademark Law

Posted on March 11, 2008
It was recently announced that Utah has amended its state law that limited the ability for internet search engines from using trademarked items as the basis for triggering online advertisements. As summarized by the Google Public Policy Blog article (link below), last year the Utah State legislature passed a law ?that essentially prohibited search engines like Google from allowing trademarks from being used as keywords to trigger ads,? noting that, ?at the time, this law ran counter to the precedent of federal trademark law, which has consistently upheld comparative advertising as being good for consumers, competition and free speech...

EPO Announced New IP Training Website

Posted on March 10, 2008
Last week the European Patent Office (EPO) announced that it has launched a new website to assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and intellectual property trainers with IP training information. The website, called INNO ACTIONS (www.ip4inno...

WIPO Magazine ? Current Issue

Posted on March 06, 2008
I came across this interesting resource and thought it would be worthy of sharing. Since 1998, the World Intellectual Property Organization (?WIPO?) has published an online and print version of WIPO Magazine, covering various intellectual-property related issues...

USPTO Announces Proposed Trademark Filing Rule Changes

Posted on March 04, 2008
On Friday, the USPTO announced via the Federal Register (link below) that it plans on amending its rules of practice regarding obtaining a filing date as of the date that trademark correspondence is deposited as Express Mail with the U.S. Postal Service...

eBay and MercExchange Settle Patent Infringement Suit

Posted on February 29, 2008
It was announced on Thursday that eBay, Inc., and MercExchange have settled their patent dispute that began back in 2001. According to the Washington Post news article (link below), eBay agreed in the settlement to purchase three patents from MercExchange and licensing other technologies which collectively allow eBay to continue to offer a number of fixed-price purchase options on its top online auction website...

Dudas Provides Congressional Testimony

Posted on February 28, 2008
On Wednesday, Jon Dudas, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, testified as to the progress the USPTO has made over the last couple of years. According to the USPTO (link below), the testimony, provided to the House Judiciary Committee?s Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, focused on a number of ?hot topics? within the USPTO, including ?patent and trademark quality and timeliness; hiring, retention and work-life offerings such as the USPTO?s award-winning telework program; global policy and enforcement initiatives; and the pending patent modernization legislation...

Foo Fighters Allege Copyright Infringement

Posted on February 27, 2008
In a recent lawsuit, the Foo Fighters allege that Marvel Comics, the company behind the Spider-Man and Fantastic Four movies, infringed two of its songs by using them within a television series trailer without permission. According to Paste Magazine (link below), the Foo Fighters, along with Roswell Records Inc...

Calendar of WIPO Events ? March, 2008

Posted on February 26, 2008
As previously referenced by the DDIP blog, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) makes available a calendar of conferences, meetings, and seminars, in Geneva, Switzerland, and elsewhere, along with event documentation when available. The following international WIPO events are scheduled for March, 2008:February 25 ? March 8 ? ?WIPO Regional Capacity Building Workshop on Patent Drafting? (WIPO/IP/SIN/08) in Singapore, Singapore...

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