Patent

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Generally, the term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. This is FindLaw’s collection of Patent articles, part of the Intellectual Property section of the Corporate Counsel Center. Law articles in this archive are predominantly written by lawyers for a professional audience seeking business solutions to legal issues. Start your free research with FindLaw.

Intellectual Property

Patent Articles

PTO Rejects Federal Circuit Decision, In Re Baird

In a highly unusual action, the PTO issued a Notice to Examiners on March 29, 1994 (1161 O.G. 314, No. 3, April 19, 1994), directing them to disregard In re Baird, 29 USPQ2d 1550 (Fed. Cir. 1994) in assessing obviousness under 35 USC 103. In Baird ...
Read More »
Publishing: How Your Patent Rights Could Perish

Traditionally, the old adage "publish or perish" has governed a person's success in academia. Nowadays, most colleges have a new mantra when scientific inventions are involved. As universities continue to partner with businesses to commercialize ...
Read More »
Re-Examining Patent Interpretation: Too Little, Too Late?

Interpreting the scope of patent claims can be like trying to parse a novel jointly written by Stephen Hawking and James Joyce. The unenviable task of legally interpreting the scope of patent claims was taken from juries and given exclusively to ...
Read More »
Reaching The Summit: Prevailing At The Federal Circuit

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first to scale Mount Everest, the highest mountain on earth. The path to the top of Mount Everest is a notoriously difficult and dangerous journey. While Hillary was a skilled ...
Read More »
Reviewing Competitor’s Patents: Are There Risks?

Many high technology companies today either systematically or sporadically track their competitors' patents. Patent disclosures can, for example, provide insight into a competitor's future product areas, or assist in evaluating the worth of a ...
Read More »
Software Patents: What does “Means” Mean?

This article was originally published in the Spring 2004 edition (Vol. 4, No. 1) of Thelen Reid's Intellectual Property and Trade Regulation Journal. Every patent has one or more claims that define the legal scope of protection afforded by the ...
Read More »
Spotting Sweet-Sounding Promises of Fraudulent Invention Promotion Firms

Think you've got a great idea for a new product or service? You're not alone. Every year, tens of thousands of people try to develop their ideas and market them commercially. Some people try to sell their idea or invention to a manufacturer that ...
Read More »
Staking A Claim In The Nanoworld

Nanotechnology is an emerging field that concerns the development and use of compositions of matter that generally have a size of between 1 and 100 nanometers, a "nanometer" being one billionth of a meter. At such small sizes, the compositions take ...
Read More »
Stanford Biotech Strategies Seminar: Michael Shuster and Lynn Pasahow of Fenwick & West.

Protecting Early Stage Technology Michael Shuster, a partner at Fenwick & West known for innovative patent prosecution and solutions, spoke on protecting early stage technology. He began his discussion by noting several recently issued cases that ...
Read More »
Strategic Patent Counseling

What questions do you, as a patent counsel, need to investigate in order to set forth a strategy which will help your client protect its product line in the marketplace? You have been engaged by a new client to formulate and implement a patent ...
Read More »