The Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) of 2016 created a federal cause of action for trade secret misappropriation with the goal of allowing companies to protect their trade secrets across the US in Federal Courts. Because a trade secret under the DTSA is broadly defined to include all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, [...]
Marbury Senior Counsel David Hyams and Dr. Dave Levin have co-authored an article for entrepreneurs and inventors in the healthcare information technology field, published on May 23, 2018 in Healthcare Informatics. The article provides an overview of the various types of intellectual property – patents, trade secrets, copyrighted works, and trademarks – that may be [...]
After you’ve spent time and money on arriving at the ideal brand name or trademark, determining its availability, prosecuting the mark, and finally, obtaining registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, you are relieved to receive your Certificate of Registration. But is registration the last word on trademark protection? The U.S. Government estimates that [...]
New guidance to Examiners from the USPTO provides additional clarity around the use of 35 U.S.C. § 101 to reject patent applications as directed to an “abstract idea.” Since the 2014 Supreme Court decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, many patent applicants have faced a novel ground of rejection from Examiners asserting that [...]
Often multiple types of intellectual property cover a product. For example, trademarks, trade secrets, and patents may all cover different aspects of the same product. The overlapping coverage can result in multiple different claims of infringement resulting for one sale of a covered product. The question then becomes, “can the rights owner recover for each [...]
Since being unanimously confirmed by the Senate as the most recent director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Andrei Iancu has called for increased reliability and predictability in the patent system. Notably, Director Iancu has spoken often since taking office about changing the conversation about patents. Speaking before the American Bar Association Intellectual Property [...]
Apple and Samsung have been locked in a legal battle over various design patents related to the iPhone since 2011. After nearly six years and a trip all the way to the Supreme Court and back, in May of this year the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California may finally decide how [...]
Oracle and Google have been fighting over Google’s use of JAVA API packages in Google’s Android operating system for the last seven years in a case that has bounced back and forth between the Northern District of California, Federal Circuit, and Supreme Court. In a blow to Google, the Federal Circuit recently overturned a jury [...]
The U.S. Patent Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) recently reversed an Examiner’s obviousness rejections in part because the Examiner improperly ignored a claim limitation. A common examination practice in the U.S. is for Examiners to treat one or more claim limitations as merely recitations of “intended use” that do not impact the patentability [...]
Disney and Redbox are currently facing off in a court battle over reselling DVD, Blu-ray, and digital download versions of movies. Disney sells combo packs of their movies that include one DVD disc, one Blu-ray disc, and one download or streaming access code for the movies. The combo packs include packaging language indicating that [...]
