Ideas into Assets® Blog

One of the greatest banes of a patent applicant is the examiner who will not allow an application that should be allowable.  During a trip to the PTO for an Examiner interview, Dr Tu passed by the office of Examiner X with a sign that stated “0% allowance rate ☺”.  Dr Tu asked the examiner [...]

A Russian man named I.V. Pugach says he owns the trademark to this facial hairstyle and has even loaded the registration certificate onto his website at http://sluganaroda.ru/index.php?action=news&mode=news&mode=full&id=77 Not only does Pugach claim the beard is the exclusive province — and a “racial attribute” — of the Russian people, but he believes that misuse of the [...]

“For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.” John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), 35th president of the United States. I like quotes that teach you something or at least get you to think about what is going [...]

Under US patent law, one is liable for infringement if he “without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent.” Direct infringement requires that a single party’s activities meet all the limitations as [...]

As we have blogged before, getting IP wrong is quite simple, and unfortunately, can be very expensive. Even those who should know better continue to get caught by not doing their research early enough, or properly.  I give you One Direction!! A group of five Californian musicians formed a band and called it One Direction [...]

According to a study released today by the Economics and Statistics Administration and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more than a quarter of all jobs in the U.S. are with companies that rely on patents, copyrights and trademarks to protect products from competition and promote investment. About 27.1 million jobs in 2010 were in industries [...]

Copyright is perhaps the most well-known but most misunderstood intellectual property right.  The most misunderstood part of copyright is probably when is copyright infringed. Copyright is infringed when a person uses all, or a “substantial part”, of copyright material in one of the ways exclusively controlled by the copyright owner without the express or implied [...]

There is a lot of buzz in the blogosphere at the moment about the danger that “iPad” could become a generic name for a tablet.  This gives rise to a useful discussion about the “genericization” of brand names. Marketing people want the brand name as widespread as possible and trademark lawyers worry … the brand [...]

The CSIRO has secured $220 million from major international technology companies after settling a second round of litigation in the US over its hugely successful wireless internet patent. The cash haul follows $205 million collected from major computer companies, including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Dell and Toshiba, in a 2009 settlement. As a part of the [...]

It is not often that United States Patent and Trademark Office makes a funny. They are not known for a sense of humour. However, sometimes they are accidentally funny. A patent application for a “scrotal support garment” was first filed in February of 2008 by Donald Quinn of Bristol, TN. If you are a fan [...]