Nearly Over 30 Years Of Representing Businesses And Their Owners
By Lee N. Smith & Craig A. Tristao The new Greenhouse gas legislation “package” extends California’s Gas Cap & Trade program and sets new emission reduction goals for 2030. It further sets emission reductions for methane. The legislation has the potential to impact dairies, landfills and composting operations. The attached powerpoint which was originally presented at the Manufacturers’ Council…
Latches is an equitable doctrine that says you can’t know about a claim you could bring and then wait years before bringing a lawsuit. The idea is that after a while, people should be able to rely on the fact that you haven’t sued to indicate that you won’t. Last year SCOTUS found that latches doesn’t apply to copyright cases. …
Download a PDF of the article here By Darryl J. Horowitt When companies are started, the need for legal advice is often minimal as resources are focused on getting business. With few employees, the need for counsel to advise management, prepare contracts, prepare an employee handbook or to assist with a termination of difficult employees is nearly nonexistent. However, as…
Download the PDF here It never made sense to me that design patents — patents that protect an ornamental design instead of a functional aspect of a device — used a formula for determining damages that made them far more valuable than utility patents. District courts have traditionally awarded damages equal to essentially all of the profits generated by the…
Download the PDF here The United States Patent and Trademark Office regularly holds events targeted all the various stakeholders it serves — inventors, startups, big companies, attorneys, trademark owners, etc. The events are all listed on the USPTO website, at https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/events. One event that all inventors should absolutely consider attending is a regional roundtable related to patent subject matter eligibility. Among…
To download the article, “First Amendment v. Limits on Trademarks: On to the Supreme Court” click here In 2015, the Federal Circuit held that “the disparagement provision of [trademark law is] unconstitutional…. We recognize that invalidating this provision may lead to the wider registration of marks that offend vulnerable communities…. But much the same can be (and has been) said…
Download the PDF here Original US Government works are not subject to copyright. The law is about as clear as it can be: Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.…
By: Gary S. Shuster To download the article, “THE AMERICA INVENTS ACT TURNS FIVE — WHAT INVENTORS NEED TO KNOW” click here The America Invents Act (“AIA”) turned five years old last week. At the time of its adoption, independent inventors were hyper-focused on the switch from “First to Invent” to “First to File”. For example, NPR did a piece…
To download the PDF click here Inventors are commonly the target of scams, so much so that the USPTO has issued specific guidance, invention promotion companies are subject to mandatory disclosure requirements, and Congress has passed a law prohibiting “Improper and deceptive invention promotion”. The World Intellectual Property Organization has issued warnings about fraudulent bills being sent for various fees…
Download the PDF here As an inventor with well over 150 issued U.S. Patents and a Harvard Law degree, I have a unique perspective on the inventor/lawyer relationship. I understand the frustration that patent lawyers feel when the inventor doesn’t understand that patent lawyers aren’t magicians, patent law is in flux, and that fees should be paid even for a…