On May 2, a federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled in favor of Columbia University in a patent-infringement lawsuit against NortonLifeLock Inc. The university sued the company, previously known as Symantec, in 2013 for...
What are PTAB proceedings?
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) processes most properly executed applications with little fanfare. However, its Patient Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) conducts trials using a three-judge panel to address inter partes reviews (the most common),...
What makes a patent ineligible?
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling on February 24, 2022, on a case argued on November 8, 2021. Unicolors, Inc. v. Hennes & Mauritz, LP involved a group of 31 design patents, nine of which were confined designs reserved for exclusive use by specific...
How patent litigation and appeals work
Patents are essential, but they are most potent when the holder is willing to protect them. This may include high-stakes jury trials, bench trials and perhaps a subsequent appeal to the Circuit Court. The results can involve permanent injunctions, financial damages,...
A look back at some recent hi-tech patents
The process of patenting an invention in New York takes a substantial amount of work - and for a good reason. There are many obstacles to ensuring that only novel inventions make it through and prevent a backlog of redundant or unnecessary patents. The year 2020 year...
Sonos wins patent dispute with Google
Tech industry giants tend to expand. While Apple may be the gold standard for this, Google is also making moves. The search engine juggernaut now also has computers, smartphones and other hardware, including smart speakers. In 2013, it began a partnership with Sonos,...
Common patent mistakes to avoid
Patents are powerful tools that enable businesses and inventors to defend their ideas. It can be a machine, process, composition of matter or manufactured item, but the widget must be new, unpatented and useful in some way. All told, there are 500,000 applications...
The changing patentability of LED lighting
Nearly 150 years ago, inventors around the world were working on a bright idea: the incandescent light bulb. The faint light of incandescent bulbs lit the world for decades but has in recent years been outshone by the compact fluorescent light (CFL) and the...
What is a patent search?
The language and logic of patent law often require taking one step forward and two steps back in order to accurately explain some terms and ideas. So it is with the simple and direct question in this blog post’s title: “What is a patent search?” The first step forward...
What if your product or design changes before patent approval?
Let’s say that you’re an inventor who has applied for a utility patent for your widget. While you’re waiting for patent approval, out of nowhere you are struck with an insight: your widget would be exponentially improved by adding a set of wheels to it. Brilliant! But...
