By: Mark R. Malek As has often been the case with some of my articles in the past, I like to introduce little practice tips as something interesting happens in my day to day life of prosecuting patent applications here at Widerman & Malek. I recently received a call from an Examiner on a case […]
Widerman Malek Law Blog
Pleading Inequitable Conduct
By: Tyler Hampy Rule 9(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure specifies that: “In alleging fraud or mistake, a party must state with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud or mistake. Malice, intent, knowledge, and other conditions of a person’s mind may be alleged generally.” The court in Exergen Corp. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., […]
Reviving An Abandoned Patent Application
By: Mark R. Malek If you haven’t noticed, many of my posts lately have revolved around the questions that I get from various clients. This one was a tough one. Not necessarily from the perspective of not knowing what to do, but having to hear the horror story from this client. Unfortunately, it is a […]
Patent Maintenance Fees
By: Mark R. Malek So you have just received your Notice of Allowance for your patent application. In the Notice of Allowance, there is a requirement for you to pay an issue fee and a publication fee. You may have paid the publication fee early pursuant to a request for early publication. Section 1129 of […]
Irreparable Injury: Lost Market Share
By: Tyler Hampy Pursuant to the well-established principles of equity, a patentee seeking an injunction against an infringer must satisfy a four-factor test before a court may grant such relief. The patentee must demonstrate: (1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, are inadequate […]
AMERICA INVENTS ACT – Limiting Joinder
By: Tyler Hampy Prior to the implementation of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20 governed permissive joinder of defendants in patent infringement suits. However, prior to the AIA, district courts were split on how they interpreted Rule 20 in patent infringement litigation. A few district courts interpreted Rule 20 […]
So Many Rocks … So Little Time
Your company has decided to conduct an audit to take inventory of its intellectual assets (IA), and has an idea of the level of abstraction at which it will identify those assets. So where should the company start seining for IA information? The following tips may be helpful.
Judge, can you “friend” me?
By: Tyler Hampy Although you may think that Facebook “friends” aren’t really the same thing as real-life friends, the ethical guidelines for lawyers and judges do not make such a distinction. Even though different jurisdictions have taken slightly different approaches with respect to judges using online social networks, the trend is all the same… there […]
Trademark Law: Geographic Terms
In my last post, I discussed the ability to trademark generic terms. This post focuses on trademarking geographic terms. In the United States, geographic terms can be registered and protected as trademarks identifying a single commercial source if certain conditions are met. Geographic terms have traditionally been very important in identifying the source and […]
