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A patent grants inventors exclusive rights to their inventions and prevents others from making, using, or selling the invention without permission. If your invention is not patentable, you can still protect it by having potential customers sign a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. Of course, some people will violate the terms of an NDA even if Read More

To get a trademark registration, everyone comes up and they want to have the most descriptive word they can. But if you get too descriptive, you’re picking a generic word. It’s simply not registrable. However, if you make a nonsense word and use that as your trademark, and we’ll give you an example to understand Read More

When you get a federal registration, you have an automatic valid trademark. That means once you register it, it’s assumed you’ve gone through all the hoops and that is valid. And what that means is if you’re ever in a legal issue, you don’t have to prove you have a trademark. You simply have to Read More

It is important to be cautious when sharing your invention with others. By revealing your invention to others, you may put your intellectual property rights at risk. The more you reveal about your invention, the more likely another person can steal or copy it. To protect your invention, you should consider filing for a patent. Read More

In order to be patentable, a claim must contain at least one feature not found in the prior art, while not reciting more features that are necessary to distinguish from the prior art. An abstract of disclosure, which briefly describes the invention mostly for searching purposes, is found after the claims, but it is published Read More

Now, what’s the advantage of having a federal registration? Well, there’s a database that registers all marks. Now, when somebody comes along and starts using their own mark and it’s similar to yours, they can’t plead ignorance of not knowing the existence of your mark because it’s in one of these registers. It’s available for Read More

I get asked “Should I register my trademark and where should I register my trademark?” and my question is or my answer is more specifically, you have two options, you can file with the state of Florida or you can file with the federal government let’s look at the advantage of filing and actually registering Read More

A patent application begins with a discussion of the prior art. The next section explains the problems or shortcomings with that prior art and what improvements are needed according to the objects of the invention. The invention is then described in detail, usually with the aid of drawings. Finally, the application concludes with claims, which Read More

Certain countries have formed filing systems, most notably the European patent system, to allow filing in one patent office for several countries. However, since it is often not possible to obtain an opinion on patentability from an examiner in one’s home country, the PCT or Patent Cooperation Treaty, which was entered into in 1970, allows Read More

I’m always asked by small companies that come on in, “I’ve been using my trademark in the marketplace for five years. Why should I bother getting a registration?” And my answer is very simple, you hate when you find out two years later that somebody down the road, maybe even upstate, opened up a similar Read More