As many of you know, a few years ago Congress passed the America Invents Act (‘AIA’). Much of this statute became effective on March 16, 2013. Prior to the AIA, an inventor or an invention owner had a one-year “grace period” to file a patent application after commercially selling an invention or using the invention […]
In the last few posts, I discussed how to interpret “means plus function” clauses and have gone into great depth analyzing the U.S. 6,289,319 Patent issued to Lockwood as an example. In this post, I will, at long last, finalize my analysis of the first “means-plus-function” claim element of U.S. 6,289,319 Patent. Recall from previous […]
A key aspect of strategic patenting is U.S. continuation practice. Continuation patents have several advantages and are widely used by small companies to build patent portfolios (especially companies who license their technology). In fact, I almost always draft initial claims with the assumption that clients will file continuations at a later point in time. A […]
Many companies or inventors unknowingly engage in activities which essentially forfeit their right to file for a U.S. patent. Patent attorneys call these activities “statutory patent bars” because the patent statute lists several activities which will “bar” an inventor or company from obtaining a patent. The modern patent statute goes back to 1952. Since 1952, […]
As of August 4, 2014, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will be instituting new access control procedures that may affect visitors to the USPTO campus in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as visitors to USPTO’s satellite offices in Denver and Detroit. These changes are the result of the Federal Government’s enforcement of the REAL […]
The cost of a provisional depends on the invention. An invention that takes 20 drawings to describe will cost more than an invention that takes 3 drawings to describe. A provisional must meet most of the requirements of a regular utility patent. In other words, the provisional must contain a written description of the invention […]