The Arcane World of Prosecution – Most engineers and scientists who have had some exposure to patents know that a substantial effort is required to file a patent application in the U.S. […]
Patentability and the “Long-Felt Unmet Need” – The Christmas Tree Stand as a Case Study
The Law, Statistics, and Anecdotes – One of the key laws for patentability of an invention is that the invention must be unobvious1. In making a determination with respect to obviousness, certain […]
The Duty of Candor in Proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Basic Principles – The prosecution of a patent application in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is an ex parte proceeding. This means that with few exceptions, the process of examination of […]
Staking Your (Patent) Claims
PART I Very few topics in the field of patent law are as misunderstood and mysterious as “claims,” the language at the end of a patent or patent application that appears to […]
Inventorship: Who Thunk Of It?
The Law – The United States is unique in the industrialized world in that an inventor must be named as the applicant for a patent, rather than his employer. Federal statute 35 […]
Structural Weaknesses of the “Quick and Dirty” Provisional Patent Application
“The Provisional Application for Patent”- Under federal statute 35 USC 111(b), an applicant may file a “provisional application for patent,” which must include a specification, i.e., a written description of the invention, […]
The NDA – A Key Agreement in Business Operations
A Healthy Paranoia – Protection of intellectual property can be a critical task for an enterprise. This is often the case from the earliest gestation of a business when a new invention […]
A Hypothetical Case – of Keeping an Invention From Going to the Dogs
The Opportunity (1) – Dave is the founder of Catalyst Concepts, a small product design firm. He’s been looking for years to get some business from Gigatron Inc., a major player in […]
The Invention Disclosure- Putting a Stake in the Ground
A Good Habit to Get Into – In the United States, a limited monopoly in the form of a patent may be granted to the first to invent, rather than the first […]
What is a Patent?
There is certainly no shortage of technically talented and inventive people in our area who could answer this question. Rochester consistently ranks at or near the top nationally in many measures of […]