By: Mark R. Malek In my last article, I outlined the new filing status in the Patent Office that can save inventors even more money in the patent process – that of the micro-entity. As you may recall from that article, when filing a patent application (and throughout the patent prosecution process), you must pay […]
By: Mark R. Malek As many of you may know, the United States Patent System recently went through a little transformation on March 15, 2013. The biggest and most public of these transformations was the transition from a first to invent system to a first to file system (more on that later). One thing that […]
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 […]
By: Mark R. Malek You may recall that my last article was directed to the requirement to pay maintenance fees in order to keep your patent alive. As was discussed in that article, maintenance fees must be paid at 3.5 years, 7.5 years and 11.5 years after the patent has issued. When someone has not paid […]
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 […]
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 […]
For inventors who wish to patent their inventions, may times they will need to acquire both utility and design patents. What is the difference between utility patents and design patents? Design patents protect and cover the physical shape and appearance of the invention, whereas the utility patent protects the functionality of the invention. For instance, […]
By: Dan Pierron As has been well publicized, starting March 16, the U.S. patent system will join the rest of the world by transitioning from a First-to-Invent system to a First-to-File system, where regardless of when they invented it, the first applicant to file an application with the USPTO has priority. Many are predicting a torrent of […]
By: Mark R. Malek In my previous article, I indicated that a patent is important to protect the rights of innovators and to encourage them to continue to innovate. This is done by providing a patent holder with an exclusive right to exclude others from making, using, selling, or offering to sell the invention that is […]
