SLPL_Patenttrademark

For a few minutes of delightful harmonization, check out this video of a quartet singing a love song to patents and trademarks.  Not only is it very entertaining, but it also contains some basic information about these two forms of intellectual property protection ("one says your invention's grand, the other one protects your brand"). So…

This new interface is a simple, consolidated place for all your interactions with the USPTO. It is a "personalized homepage and gateway to USPTO business." It can do almost everything! It provides shortcuts to USPTO applications and other sites, you can link payment methods for one-stop shopping, and the widgets are customizable to meet your…

Whether you celebrate with pizza or with pie or with something else round, Happy Pi Day! (March 14 = 3.14, π = 3.1415926...., so Pi Day is most appropriately celebrated at 1:59) In honor of this nerdy holiday, here's some pi-related patents Pi coupling agents for dispersion of graphene nanoplatelets in polymers Pie chart based information…

On March 11, the US Patent and Trademark Office will unveil the latest redesign of the patent cover.  This is only the second time that the patent cover has been redone in the past hundred years, so they're making a production of it.  Go here to see the "trailer", and go to SXSW to see Andrei…

The USPTO Inventor Info Chat on Claim Drafting, presented on February 15, describes an important part of the patent application process. Because the claims define the boundaries of the intellectual property and thus determine the protections afforded, it is vital to understand how to draft them.  The order in which words are arranged can have specific legal meanings…

Most inventors and entrepreneurs want to profit from their ideas.  That's the point of protecting them with patents and trademarks.  But how do you go from ideas to cold, hard cash? One source of information is the Goldsmith Technology Commercialization Model, from the College of Business Administration's Nebraska Business Development Center at the University of Nebraska…

The USPTO's Patent Quality Chat series is a series of monthly webinars on patent quality topics, with a short presentation given by an expert and plenty of time for questions.  The most recent one, on January 9, 2018, titled Unlocking Open Data for our Patent Customers, described the USPTO's latest increase in transparency with the offering of a…

As is clear from the name, a Patent & Trademark Resource Center offers help with patents and trademarks. The two other forms of intellectual property -- copyrights and trade secrets -- are not part of the mandate.   Most librarians can point you to the Copyright Office website, which contains all you need to know. Trade…

The USPTO is entirely self-supported.  The fees collected support all that goes into the granting of patents and registering of trademarks.  Periodically, the Office reviews the fees charged and costs incurred, and revises the fee schedule, with input from patent stakeholders. The results of the most recent revision of patent fees were issued earlier this month, with an…

Once a patent is granted, or a trademark is registered, what can be done with it?  Besides using it to protect your own use of your intellectual property, it can provide indirect benefit which can be just as valuable.  Both patents and trademarks are property, and just like the owner of a house can rent it out to generate income…