Intellectual Property

Your Start-Up Will Stall If It Doesn’t Own Its IP

As I’ve emphasized in other writings, the single most important asset of any business is its intellectual property (“IP”).  Sure, good management is very important, but executives and other managers can (and do) come and go.  A start-up’s IP, like a diamond, should be forever (or at least until it’s sold or tra nsferred).  Among…

Read More...

Amazon patents blur human-robot lines

Amazon’s recent success in obtaining two U.S. patents (9,881,276 and 9,881,277) for wristbands, capable of controlling employees’ hands and directing their actions, has raised fundamental legal and even constitutional questions about government authority to authorize and enforce inventions. Thus, potentially redefining the relationship between humans and technology by effectively treating people as robots. The looming…

Read More...

Always Use Protection! – Submitting Your Ideas Without Getting Ripped Off

Just about everyone at one time or another has come up with an idea for a movie, TV show, product or service.  They’ve seen or are aware of how much money can be made in such endeavors, figure their ideas are as good as anyone else’s, if not better, and decide to take a shot…

Read More...

Using Patents to Establish Brand

Small businesses and especially startups are often well aware of what a patent can accomplish for their businesses; provide a legal monopoly for their inventions for a period of time.  And yet, the effects of a patent can go beyond protection of an invention and can include helping establish a strong brand for the business,…

Read More...

Employers Have a Strong New Weapon To Protect Against Theft of Their Trade Secrets —If They Know How to Qualify For It

Fact–the theft of trade secrets, much of it cyber-theft, annually costs American businesses approximately $320 billion, with over 75% of trade secret lawsuits over the last two decades being brought against employees.  To aid employers, Congress in May passed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (the “Act”).  The Act adds a federal cause of action against…

Read More...

That Sucks For You. But, it doesn’t have to if you’re aware of this.

The Internet Corporation of Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) is the international company that oversees what are called generic top-level domains (“TLD”). These are .com, .net, .org and the others we’re all familiar with and likely use for our businesses and brands. Recently, ICANN approved and delegated about 550 new TLDs. One of them is “.sucks”…

Read More...

Countering Unauthorized Postings on the Internet

The internet has provided owners of intellectual property with virtually instantaneous and unlimited access to vast new markets and opportunities.  On the other hand, the new medium has provided opportunities for copycats to make unauthorized use of others’ intellectual property works. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides a legal and procedural framework and mechanism…

Read More...

Intellectual Property

Briefly, the term intellectual property is an umbrella of rights that include patents (utility and design), trademarks (trade name, logo or trade dress), and copyrights. Patents afford protection for ideas that are useful, novel and non-obvious. There are typically three types of patents that concern most businesses; utility patents, which protect the use, function and…

Read More...

The DTSA

In the most consequential Intellectual Property development of 2016, the Federal government has enacted a brand new federal trade secrets law, known as Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA).  This means that now all four branches of Intellectual Property (Patent, Trademark, Copyright, and Trade Secrets) are protected under Federal law and can be brought in Federal…

Read More...