News
May 2013 – The Marbury Law Group, PLLC has once again been recognized among the "Top Patent Firms" in the U.S. by Intellectual Property Today magazine.
In 2012, Marbury had a 17% increase in the number of issued U.S. patents for our clients compared to 2011. According to the list, Marbury continues a three-year trend of double-digit percent increase in number of patents issued to our clients.
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On March 16, 2013, U.S. patent law switched from a “first-to-invent” to a “first-inventor-to-file” system under the America Invents Act (AIA). A summary of the changes is available here.
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We are pleased to announce that Robert Scott has recently joined the firm as a new senior associate. Rob was most recently an in-house counsel and VP of Patent Administration with Wi-Lan Inc. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering from George Mason University and his JD from GMU.
We are also pleased to welcome Jeff Salomon, who joins Marbury as a new associate. Jeff received his BS in computer engineering from the University of Florida and his JD from the Franklin Pierce Law Center (now the New Hampshire School of Law). He most recently worked as an associate with Baker Hostetler LLP.
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A new USPTO fee schedule goes into effect March 19, 2013. While issue fees will decrease, filing fees and maintenance fees will increase, resulting in a net overall increase in patent application fees. Also, the new fee schedule penalizes patent applications filed with more than 20 claims or more than 3 independent claims. In fact, applicants filing applications containing 40 or more claims or 6 or more independent claims, will pay more than the cost of filing two separate applications under the 20/3 claim limit. It is thus recommended that applicants consider filing two or more separate applications on the same date, in order to stay under this new graded fee structure based on the number of claims filed. The full fee schedule is available here.
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Shauna Wertheim will be speaking for the DC Bar CLE Program on How to Protect and Enforce Trademark Rights on March 20, 2013 from 6:00-9:15 P.M. at the DC Bar Headquarters at 1101 K Street, NW. This spring program represents the 12th year that Ms. Wertheim will present this course to DC Bar members.
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Recent Patents
October 2012 – U.S. Patent No. 8,279,786 B1, entitled “Methods and Systems for Dynamic Spectrum Arbitrage,” for client Rivada Networks, LLC covers methods and systems for managing and monitoring allocation of RF spectrum resources based on time, space and frequency.
September 2012 – U.S. Patent No. 8,275,349 B2, entitled, “Method and System for Providing Tiered Priority Access to Communication Network Resources,” also for client Rivada Networks, LLC covers methods and systems to allocate cellular communication network resources to emergency response personnel during emergency situations which are detected by call volumes exceeding a predetermined maximum.
September 2012 – U.S. Patent No. 8,260,709 B2, entitled “Medical Data Encryption for Communication Over a Vulnerable System” for client mVisum, Inc. covers a method for securing patient medical information for communication by separately encrypting different parts of a patient medical record, and thus processing and communication of patient medical files by intermediary servers is enabled without risking disclosure of sensitive patient information if such servers are compromised.
May 2012 — The Marbury Law Group has obtained two recent U.S. patents for client Primus Power Corporation, a leader in grid-scale energy storage. U.S. patent number 8,236,445 entitled “Electrochemical Energy System” covers the design of the Company’s innovative flow cell system and stack. U.S. patent number 8,202,641 entitled “Metal Electrode Assembly for Flow Batteries” covers the design of the Company’s innovative electrode assembly. This second patent’s examination was accelerated via the USPTO Green Technology Pilot Program. These patents are the fourth and fifth U.S. patent issued to Primus since November 2011. Collectively, the Company’s five U.S. patents cover key innovations on chemistry, cell design and battery operation.
“Receiving five patents in a short period of time is a remarkable achievement for Primus. It is a significant testament to innovation in the original design by our founder Rick Winter and the careful refinement by the Primus team since then”, said Tom Stepien, Primus Power’s CEO. “We are also extremely grateful to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Green Technology Pilot Program that accelerates review of key ideas that create green jobs and promote U.S. competitiveness in the vital green tech sector,” according to a Primus Power news release.