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Widerman Malek Law Blog

United States Trademark Office Launches Pilot Program For Trademark Cancellation Proceedings

The USPTO announced that it was launching a pilot program to streamline cancellation proceedings for registered trademarks that may have been abandoned or that the trademark owner is not currently using.  The Trademark Office indicated that such trademark registrations often act as a hindrance to trademark owners that are actually using their trademarks but cannot […]

Laura Peter announced as deputy director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross today announced the appointment of Laura A. Peter as deputy under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and deputy director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), effective November 13, 2018. Peter most recently held the position of deputy general counsel of A10 Networks in Silicon Valley and […]

Trademark Piracy – Amazon Brand Registry

Over the past several months a disturbing practice has been occurring at the USPTO.  Trademark pirates are fraudulently changing the email address of the correspondence section within a trademark registration.  Once changed, the trademark pirate contacts Amazon Brand Registry and requests the trademark be registered to the fraudulent email address/pirate.  Amazon will email a secret […]

How To Obtain A Software Patent

Up until recently, software patents accounted for about half of all patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The U.S. Supreme Court has since made it more difficult to receive a software patent. However, the tide is shifting back in favor of inventors and patent owners. In fact, since the initial […]

Protecting Software Using Patent And Trade Secret Law

Protecting Software Using Patent And Trade Secret Law Traditional legal strategies have pitted trade secret law and patent law against one another.  This is because patents are made public while trade secrets must be kept confidential.  However, there is a way to utilize the best of what both have to offer.

Overcoming Patent Application Rejections by the USPTO

35 USC §101 Rejections Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Alice v. CLS Bank in 2014 there has been a drastic increase in 35 USC §101 rejections. The decision emphasized that inventions “directed to an abstract idea” are not patentable. The U.S. Patent Office has used this decision to reject a majority of software utility […]

Design Patents to Protect Your Software

In a previous article, we discussed a legal strategy for protecting software that involved segmenting software into three tiers and protecting each tier separately. Those tiers are as follows: Level One: User Interface Level Two: API Level Three: Algorithms and Data Structures This article focuses on the first tier, which involves how the user interacts […]

Is There Legal Protection for Software?

Although the protection strategy has changed, the answer is yes. Until recently, software patents accounted for about half of all utility patents issued by the USPTO. Application of a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court case, Alice v. CLS Bank, effectively slammed the door on this practice. Likewise, software patents issued prior to this decision have been […]

Lee Resigns; Matal Appointed Acting Director of USPTO

In the day following Michelle Lee’s resignation as Director of the USPTO, Joseph Matal was announced as Acting Director.

Former Bank Manager Convicted in Connection With Trademark Fraud

Over the years, several of our clients have received trademark solicitations from what appeared to be legitimate entities, but which are in fact complete scams. I recently posted an article on LinkedIn regarding this issue. A typical example of one type of scam letter can be found in our previous article on this topic. A […]

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