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IP Holding Companies – Why You Need One

If you’re running your own small business, and you don’t have a holding company for your intellectual property, you should make an appointment to have your head examined.  Creating a separate entity, solely for the purpose of owning your IP, is the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to insure the goodwill associated with your business.

I [...]

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Space Coast Business Magazine prints one of my articles :)

One of the partners at my law firm, Mark Malek, and I put together a quick overview (800-words-or-less) about patents and copyrights for Space Coast Business Magazine.  They ran it in their January issue, and you can read the full text here.

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Paris Hilton continues her IP education… from the defendant’s chair

After getting the go-ahead from the Ninth Circuit earlier this year on her “That’s Hot!” trademark infringement case against Hallmark, hotel heiress Paris Hilton has apparently signed up (although unwillingly) for another intellectual property lesson.  This time, she’s going to be studying design patents.  Her professor, a footwear designer called Gwyneth Shoes, claims that its [...]

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USPTO Jumps in Line to Provide “Green” Initiatives, Ignores Climate Gate

“Awe!  Come ON!  I made a movie about it.  That proves it’s true.”

Director Kappos, of the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), writes on his blog this week about how the Office intends to fast-track the examination of patent applications that deal with so-called “green” technologies.  Great headline for a month ago, when [...]

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Patent Language: “The Present Invention” versus “An Embodiment of the Present Invention”

If you spend any time reading patent applications, two things will probably become apparent to you:  1) you probably need to find a hobby or five to take up more of your time; and 2) sometimes it may seem like patent applications are written in some kind of strange, overly complicated, almost alien language.  Usually, [...]

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Movie Night

Happy Friday, IP enthusiasts!  I thought it might be interesting to celebrate the end of this hard-fought work week with a movie recommendation.  So stop by your local movie rental establishment, or add this one to the top of your Netflix queue, nuke a bowl of popcorn, sit back, relax, and enjoy this flick.

Primer (2004) [...]

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Patently-O’s First-to-File Survey

Professor Dennis CrouchUniversity of MissouriSchool of Law

Not that I want to club anyone to death with stories about first-to-file patent reform, but given that Director Kappos has begun beating the patent reform drum, it’s becoming more important that all the facts are known.  Up to now, there really hasn’t been any consensus on whether [...]

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The USPTO Embraces the Blogosphere, Lobbies for First-to-File

Kappos: “Hey Ted, can you show me how these here tubes work?”

The U.S. Government Agency that is responsible for validating which technologies are new and useful has discovered a not so new, yet highly useful tool: web logs.

In an effort to open a line of communication between the USPTO and the [...]

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Can McDonald’s really sue you for how you make your sandwich?

Short Answer: No. Probably not.

I call this one "the McBaby." Should I try to patent it before McDonald’s does?

McDonald’s Corp. is getting some recent attention in the blogosphere for a patent application, originally filed in late 2004, which describes its “Method and Apparatus for Making a Sandwich.” What’s interesting to [...]

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The USPTO is Going Soft on Patent Applications

Kerry Gorgone reports on the touching story of a pint-sized “inventor” who “came up” with the idea for attaching an IV bag pole to a kiddie car, so that hospitalized children can play while getting their meds. It seems the kid filed a patent application for the device and is charging a licensing fee [...]

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