Patents and IP

Discussion of patent law, IP law, and public policy issues

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Open Enrollment for health insurance purchased via the Affordable Care Act marketplaces begins November 1st, 2017! http://thndr.me/lqVwfA

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Consider trade secrets, especially when your commercially important secrets are unsuitable for patent or copyright protection.

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The International patent process can start with just a provisional patent, but you must do further steps within 12 months, and more steps by 30 months.

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Don’t like having your own inventions used against you? Before your patent issues, consider filing a continuation application.

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Medical device patents: important, write carefully!

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Filing for patents outside the US? Foreign patent offices may use your own earlier filed patents against you.

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Doing a startup with open source software? Pick the software with the license terms that best fit your business.

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Is the US, lacking coherent rules, borrowing from elsewhere?

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Netflix v Rovi - Amici Brief

Although I’m a big fan of Netflix, the 12/18/15 Amici Curiae filing in Netflix v Rofi made a number of good points.  These included:  

“While Alice chose not to provide any guidance on how to identify an “abstract idea,” it certainly did not authorize the vast expansion of the category seen in lower court decisions over the past year. To the extent that “fundamental economic practice[s] long prevalent in our system of commerce” are judicially excluded from patent protection under Alice, “novel” business practices and other “just discovered” methods of organizing human activity are not included within that group.”  I also liked:

 “Incorporating undue detail from the claim into alleged “abstract ideas” essentially dictates the outcome of the patent-eligibility analysis before step two is reached. For one, by erroneously including the “novel” aspects, instead of merely the “long standing” aspects into the alleged “abstract idea,” Netflix removed the aspects of the claim that in step two of the Alice analysis would be properly considered as “something more.” This is clearly error under Mayo and Alice.”

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Law Comics is a project steered by non-boring lawyers to render iconic legal cases in full-colour...