02 November

Sticky

Ecuador May Soon Reap the Benefits of the Patent Prosecution Highway

in Blog

Ecuador has been participating in a pilot program of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) since 2016 but has as of yet failed to implement the system for a number of reasons. However, with the announcement in July that Ecuador may join the Pacific Alliance next year under its new President, Lenin Moreno, and a general market-friendly shift in government, it is expected that the PPH could soon become effective. PPH Benefits The PPH is a system that enables an applicant who receives a positive ruling on patent claims from one PPH participating office to request accelerated prosecution of corresponding claims in another participating office....

01 November

0 Comments

Sticky

Know the Risks Before Licensing Unregistered Trademarks in China

Posted by coffylawpro

in Blog

Despite the tough talk in Washington D.C., the ability to expand your business internationally to countries such as China is exciting. But what are the steps? How do you do it and what are the issues? Some of the most common starting points include contracting an advertisement agency to run a $2 million marketing campaign on WeChat, opening an online store at JD or TMALL, and/or finding a retailer/distributor to sell your products in exchange for a percentage of each sale. But here’s the main question: What if your trademark is not registered in China? Questions to Consider Here are some examples: Elizabeth...

01 November

0 Comments

Sticky

Other Barks & Bites for Friday, November 1: CAFC Arthrex Decision Makes PTAB Judges Inferior Officers, USPTO Seeks Comments on IP Protections for AI Inventions and Reports to Congress on SUCCESS Act

Posted by coffylawpro

in Blog

Bites (noun): more meaty news to sink your teeth into. Barks (noun): peripheral noise worth your attention. This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit hands out three precedential decisions; the USPTO sends its SUCCESS Act Report to Congress; the Copyright Royalty Board proposes royalty rates on ephemeral recordings for certain Internet transmissions; China unveils legislation to create a public blacklist for patent offenders; the Ninth Circuit revives a copyright case against Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”; Google agrees to buy Fitbit for $2.1 billion; and the USPTO seeks public comments on the type of IP protections that should be extended to...

31 October

0 Comments

Sticky

Practical Tips for Drafting Patent Applications After American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. v. Neapco Holdings

Posted by coffylawpro

in Blog

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided on October 3 to affirm the ruling by the United States District Court for the District of Delaware that the asserted claims of U.S. patent number 7,774,911 are directed to patent ineligible subject matter under Section 101 (American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. v. Neapco Holdings LLC ). Much has been written about the majority and dissenting opinions. Here, we concentrate on what the patent practitioner can do when drafting a patent application in light of the case. Explain How One of the findings is that the specification discussed types of attenuation in propshafts, and tuning of...

31 October

0 Comments

Sticky

The Latest and Greatest Halloween Patents for Your Perusal

Posted by coffylawpro

in Blog

It’s a fun yet creepy day, so a fun and creepy patents post is in order. Hopefully you are reading this while dressed as a goblin, ghoul, or your favorite/ most hated politician. While I must admit that the USPTO database exhibited a dearth of Halloween-related patents this year, below are the few newer additions, along with some of the classics. Happy Halloween everyone! Halloween bag with pop-up surpriseUS Patent No. 10,364,068Issued July 30, 2019 This patent is described as follows: “A pop-up mechanism for use with a bag so that when operated by a user, a decorative object pops up from a...

31 October

0 Comments

Sticky

Panelists Warn Senate IP Subcommittee Against Drastic Measures on Patent Quality

Posted by coffylawpro

in Blog

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, headed by Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), yesterday heard from five witnesses on ways to improve patent quality at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Suggestions ranged from fixing patent eligibility jurisprudence to strengthening efforts on international work sharing, increasing patent application fees, and allotting more time for the examination process. The majority of panelists warned against the dangers of using patent quality as a means to simply block broad swaths of patents that particular industries or entities don’t like, and emphasized that clarifying U.S. patent law would likely go a long way to...

31 October

0 Comments

Sticky

Federal Circuit Says PTAB Judges Are Not Constitutionally Appointed

Posted by coffylawpro

in Blog

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in an opinion authored by Judge Moore, has ruled that the current statutory scheme for appointing Administrative Patent Judges (APJs) to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution as it makes APJs principal officers. APJs are presently appointed by the Secretary of Commerce, but principal officers must be appointed by the U.S. President under the Constitution, Article II, § 2, cl. 2. To remedy this, the statutory removal provisions that are presently applied to APJs must be severed so that the Secretary of Commerce has the...

30 October

0 Comments

Sticky

The PPH Program at the USPTO: Favorable Stats Don’t Alleviate Big Risks

Posted by coffylawpro

in Blog

Since 2006, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has participated in the Patent Prosecution Highway Pilot Program (the PPH Program). Generally, the program is designed to accelerate examination of a given patent application as a result of examination of a corresponding application at another PPH-participating patent office having reached a positive ruling more quickly. If an application is eligible for and accepted into the PPH Program, the USPTO expedites processing of the application. Examiners also have the benefit of drawing from another examiner’s assessment of corresponding claims. Generally, existing data on the PPH Program has indicated that it is associated...

30 October

0 Comments

Sticky

Keeping Up with Copyright Infringement: Copyright, Celebrities, Paparazzi, and Social Media

Posted by coffylawpro

in Blog

Just two months after the end of her second copyright infringement lawsuit, fashion model Jelena Noura “Gigi” Hadid was sued for a third time, on September 13, for copyright infringement for posting paparazzi photos to her social media accounts without the license or permission of the photographer. Other celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Victoria Beckham and, most recently, Justin Bieber, have made news for the same situation. This trend falls into an interesting intersection of two significant tenets of law: a celebrity’s right of publicity in their own image and a photographer’s right to copyright their artistic work. Hadid Cases Hadid was first...

29 October

0 Comments

Sticky

How Businesses Can Prepare for ITC Exclusion Orders: Section 337 Investigations on the Rise

Posted by coffylawpro

in Blog

Patent investigations at the International Trade Commission (ITC) have been on an upward trend in the last few years. In 2018, the most recent year with complete data, 74 new complaints were filed and there were 130 active investigations, compared to the 117 active investigations in 2017. The trend appears to be continuing in 2019. In today’s global economy, with so many types of products and components being imported into the United States, a rise in patent investigations means that a large number of U.S. companies and their customers are at risk of having their supply chain disrupted. This can result in...