Everyone loves cookies! To some, cookies are a big deal because of judged baking competitions (like at county fairs). To others, cookies are a major big deal, as in financially huge! From several stands, “Sweet Martha’s Cookie Jar” makes and sells over 3 million chocolate chip cookies a day, during the 12-day run of the Minnesota State Fair. Of course,
In today’s super competitive marketplace, clients sometimes find it difficult to choose a trademark that does not encroach on someone’s established trademark turf. The client usually looks at a new trademark from an ownership viewpoint, choosing a brand that it believes will deliver it to the Promised Land. If there is another who preceded the client and has rights that
Every day we are confronted with new acronyms, or more specifically internet abbreviations since many don’t exactly fall under the traditional definition of acronyms, like: LOL (Laughing Out Loud); OMW (On My Way); TIL (Today I Learned); IMO (In My Opinion). Bear with us as we dedicate a column to one such abbreviation and its connection to intellectual property (IP).
After a U.S patent application is filed, whether it is a provisional patent application or a nonprovisional patent application, the patent attorney is often confronted with the proverbial question: “Am I protected?” This simple question produces an enormous amount of apprehension. How do we explain to the client, after the client has spent considerable money and time in filing the
We always encourage our clients to select the best possible trademarks for their products. In our intellectual property lawyer view, “best” means a mark that is available for use with the client’s goods or services and that is likewise registerable on the Principal Register at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Our clients don’t always agree with us as to
Have you heard about the Madrid Protocol? Is it a new Covid-19 treatment? Is it the next Bond movie? Most know where “Madrid” is located . . . Spain. But what about the “Protocol” part? Intellectual property can sometimes be mysterious, especially when adult beverages and your imagination are shaken, not stirred. The Madrid Protocol is an IP tool that,
For most small business clients that seek a U.S. patent, commercial success in the United States alone is typically the goal. At the outset of a new product launch, revenue derived from sales outside the U.S. may not even be on the client’s radar. Likewise, seeking patent protection outside the U.S. may not be considered to be very important. The
The ideal situation for a new product in a competitive marketplace is to keep the new product under wraps as long as possible, while seeking trademark priority rights. However, the process for obtaining trademark rights (for a trademark that has not yet been used) requires the filing of an application to register that trademark at the United States Trademark Office.
We are often called upon to evaluate whether a proposed brand is available as a mark for our client’s goods or services. We consider such issues as whether the mark is too descriptive to function as a trademark for those products, and whether prior users or registrations might present problems for our client’s proposed use. We then report to the
According to the International Trademark Association, the U.S. auto industry alone could employ over 200,000 additional employees if it could put counterfeiters out of business. Louis Vuitton estimates 2-3 million counterfeit items are produced each year – double the number of genuine LOUIS VUITTON brand products produced annually. According to an Associated Press 2017 article, counterfeit goods cost the U.S.
Everyone loves cookies! To some, cookies are a big deal because of judged baking competitions (like at county fairs). To others, cookies are a major big deal, as in financially huge! From several stands, “Sweet Martha’s Cookie Jar” makes and sells over 3 million chocolate chip cookies a day, during the 12-day run of the Minnesota State Fair. Of course,
In today’s super competitive marketplace, clients sometimes find it difficult to choose a trademark that does not encroach on someone’s established trademark turf. The client usually looks at a new trademark from an ownership viewpoint, choosing a brand that it believes will deliver it to the Promised Land. If there is another who preceded the client and has rights that
Every day we are confronted with new acronyms, or more specifically internet abbreviations since many don’t exactly fall under the traditional definition of acronyms, like: LOL (Laughing Out Loud); OMW (On My Way); TIL (Today I Learned); IMO (In My Opinion). Bear with us as we dedicate a column to one such abbreviation and its connection to intellectual property (IP).
After a U.S patent application is filed, whether it is a provisional patent application or a nonprovisional patent application, the patent attorney is often confronted with the proverbial question: “Am I protected?” This simple question produces an enormous amount of apprehension. How do we explain to the client, after the client has spent considerable money and time in filing the
We always encourage our clients to select the best possible trademarks for their products. In our intellectual property lawyer view, “best” means a mark that is available for use with the client’s goods or services and that is likewise registerable on the Principal Register at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Our clients don’t always agree with us as to
Have you heard about the Madrid Protocol? Is it a new Covid-19 treatment? Is it the next Bond movie? Most know where “Madrid” is located . . . Spain. But what about the “Protocol” part? Intellectual property can sometimes be mysterious, especially when adult beverages and your imagination are shaken, not stirred. The Madrid Protocol is an IP tool that,
For most small business clients that seek a U.S. patent, commercial success in the United States alone is typically the goal. At the outset of a new product launch, revenue derived from sales outside the U.S. may not even be on the client’s radar. Likewise, seeking patent protection outside the U.S. may not be considered to be very important. The
The ideal situation for a new product in a competitive marketplace is to keep the new product under wraps as long as possible, while seeking trademark priority rights. However, the process for obtaining trademark rights (for a trademark that has not yet been used) requires the filing of an application to register that trademark at the United States Trademark Office.
We are often called upon to evaluate whether a proposed brand is available as a mark for our client’s goods or services. We consider such issues as whether the mark is too descriptive to function as a trademark for those products, and whether prior users or registrations might present problems for our client’s proposed use. We then report to the
According to the International Trademark Association, the U.S. auto industry alone could employ over 200,000 additional employees if it could put counterfeiters out of business. Louis Vuitton estimates 2-3 million counterfeit items are produced each year – double the number of genuine LOUIS VUITTON brand products produced annually. According to an Associated Press 2017 article, counterfeit goods cost the U.S.
