Getting A Refund From The Patent Office If You Are Now A Small Entity

By: Mark R. Malek This concludes the series of articles that I have been writing on entity status in the United States Patent Office.  The first article introduced the new micro-entity status.  The next article gave some background information on what would happen if you claimed the wrong entity status before the USPTO, and the latest […]

By: Mark R. Malek As you may recall, my last couple of articles have been about the different statuses that an inventor can claim when paying fees to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  The first of these series of articles was an introduction to the micro-entity status, which allows inventors that qualify as […]

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 […]

Judges preceding over patent infringement cases, have a very difficult job to do.  They must define the scope of the patent protection over an invention and determine whether a company or individual violated that patent.  This is easier said than done.  Patent language is not cut and dry.  The language leaves much room for interpretation.  […]

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 […]

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., […]

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 […]

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