Category Archives: Patent

What is a patent declaration?

Simply, a declaration is an inventor’s promise – or acknowledgment of the promise – with the Patent Office.  A patent application contains numerous pieces of information and paperwork.  There is the patent disclosure itself, which includes the summary, background, description, … Continue reading

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Does a patent assignment need to be notarized?

Generally, no.  Assignments are transfers of the entire interest in a patent from one entity to another.  They are distinguished from licenses, which give another person a limited right to the patent.  In the US, there is no requirement that … Continue reading

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What is a patent assignment?

A patent assignment is a transfer or sale of the entire interest in a patent.  That means all rights that were originally granted to the patentee transfer to the assignee.  Any other transfer of lesser than full rights in a … Continue reading

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What is a patent license?

Patents can be thought as a “bundle of rights.” An issued patent carries with it a number of exclusive rights, each of which can be divided up individually from the others – removed from the bundle like one of many … Continue reading

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Original, Continuation, and Divisional Application Strategy

The law prohibits an inventor from patenting two separate inventions within one patent application. However, sometimes an application is written with more than one invention. What happens after that original application is filed depends on the structure of the description … Continue reading

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Right to Use versus Right to Exclude

The law provides for different rights, depending on the subject matter concerned, the evolution of the law through courts and legislative bodies, and practical implications.  Some people think that a patent or a trademark gives the owner a right to … Continue reading

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Patent Office Action Response Deadlines

When the Patent Office sends you an Office Action, you typically have a few deadlines for response.  The OA will indicate the deadline on its front page: 3 months, but that time can be extended up to 6 months with … Continue reading

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Patent Dashboard Displays a Clear, but Sad, View of Patent Pendency

The Patent Office has taken a number of steps in the last year or so toward transparency, approachability, and clarity.  It recently released the Patent Dashboard, or “Data Visualization Center.”  The Dashboard is a simple display of the average time … Continue reading

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What is an effective filing date?

What is an effective filing date? If you”ve done some reading about patents, you may have seen references to an “effective filing date.” For instance, while patent attorneys will often shorthand an explanation of patents by saying they offer protection … Continue reading

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Is Web Scraping Legal?

I had a friend get in touch with me a while back about the legalities of web scraping. He found, and I’m finding too, a tremendous lack of information about web scraping. I think this is a result of there being so many strange ramifications depending on the many variables in the facts of each situation. I got interested in the legal issues involved in web scraping, and so I put together a hypothetical to test some of them out. Continue reading

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