Articles News & Research

Monday, July 11, 2016

A recent decision by Judge Catherine Blake serves as a reminder of the importance of documenting fees and costs for later recovery under 35 U.S.C.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Applying the Supreme Court’s relatively recent decision in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S.Ct. 2347 (2014), Judge Paul W. Grimm of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland granted summary judgment of invalidity under 35 U.S.C. § 101 against two patents because the patent claims explained what the invention does without explaining how it does so.  Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Financial Corp., 127 F. Supp. 3d 506 (D. Md Sept. 2, 2015).

Thursday, June 30, 2016

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the Maryland District Court’s dismissal of a breach of contract claim relating to the defendant filing trademark applications in several foreign countries, allegedly in violation of a Worldwide Coexistence Agreement relating to the parties’ respective PERDUE and PERDIX marks:  “ongoing duties not to do business in Maryland do not demonstrate that [the defendant] purposefully availed itself of the privilege of doing business in Maryland.”  Perdue Foods LLC v. BRF S.A., 814 F.3d 185, 191 (4th Cir. Feb. 19, 2016).

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

A motion for over $2 million in attorneys’ fees for plaintiff was denied by U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis because (1) the attorneys for the plaintiff/prevailing party “unnecessarily proceeded beyond the pleading stage” with respect to a defective counterclaim, thus suggesting that plaintiff’s attorneys should have mitigated attorneys’ fees by filing a motion under Rule 12 of the Fed. R. Civ. P., and (2) attorneys’ fees related to state law counterclaims were not sufficiently intertwined with patent issues so as to make them recoverable under 35 U.S.C. § 285.  Genspera, Inc. v.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

If you are one of the many who believe that once a commercialized product holds a patent, it is completely protected from any infringement, you need to keep reading.  That’s because a product must be marked with the correct and active patent number to collect on past damages.  Unfortunately and all too often, that is not the case. 

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Patent law was conceived to spur innovation and incentivize original ideas. But in the age of technology, several factors have led to congestion of the court system, sometimes suppression of innovation and, in some instances, dubious assertions of patent infringement.  

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Trademark owners beware.  Your trademark may have been hijacked on the internet.  The internet creates many opportunities for trademark abuse.  For instance, third parties can claim registered trademarks as their own username on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.  However, it is not the duty of the social network to police for unauthorized trademark use.  The trademark owner needs to monitor for any activities that may injure the strength, reputation and goodwill of their mark.  Sounds like an ominous task, so what should you do?

 

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Tech Transfer is an idea that everyone, regardless of industry, seems to be in love with at the moment.

Theoretically, it’s great.  

Here’s why:

Research (the chicken) that has already been paid for yields discovery and results (eggs) that, if licensed, can bring income (more chickens) back to both the inventor(s) and the institutions where the inventors work.  Brilliant (It’s a veritable hatchery!) 

But, here’s the catch:

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Often one of the first questions we receive from clients is:  How long will it take to get my patent/trademark registration once an application is filed in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (“PTO”)?

Thursday, September 24, 2015

The cyber-landscape is changing. This month, the International Committee for the Assignment of Numbers and Names (ICANN) will expand the categories of generic top-level domain names (gTLDs). These are the letters after the dot in a web address. At present, there are 22 gTLDs, but the ones we’re most familiar with are .com, .net, and .org. Imagine a cyber-world with thousands of different gTLDs. ICANN tells us that this may describe the topography of the Internet in the near future. There might be, for example, .book, .skateboarding, or .midwest.

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