Thanks to a local holiday in the District of Columbia, tax day falls on April 18th this year.  If you still need some help with your taxes, there are many products on the market that can assist.  And of course, where there are products, there are patents and trademarks.  So, in honor of tax day, [...]

“The Great American Hall of Wonders” will be on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum from July 15 through Jan. 8, 2012.  Through a collaboration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the exhibit will reveal both the successful experiments of the past, as well as the ones that went awry, and will [...]

On April 11, 2011 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, co-founders of Facebook®, could not back out of a settlement deal they reached with Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) and Facebook, Inc.  The parties had entered into a settlement which was based on a previously filed lawsuit by [...]

According to yesterday’s press release, in case of a federal government shut down, the USPTO will be able to operate as normal for six (6) business days “because the USPTO has enough available reserves, not linked to the current fiscal year, to remain in operation until then.”  For more information, please see the press release [...]

On Monday of this week the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) started accepting requests for prioritized examination of patent applications.  As mentioned in our blog of February 11, 2011 this accelerated examination will allow patents to be processed within 12 months.  Currently it takes nearly three years to process a patent.  Requests for [...]

In the last post in our series regarding spring cleaning of your IP, we discuss patent portfolios. With respect to patent portfolios, we recommend similar action items as discussed with respect trademark portfolios.  First, we recommend reviewing your docket for any outstanding office actions and identify any upcoming foreign filing deadlines.  Decisions with respect to [...]

Under Kentucky law there is apparently something to be said for the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This past February in a child custody case, the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled that photographs posted or tagged on Facebook can be admitted as evidence in a proceeding.  The Appellant in this case argued [...]

Portfolios of pending and registered trademarks should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure pendency and/or registration is maintained. First we recommend you review your docket and identify upcoming deadlines with respect to outstanding office actions in both the U.S. and foreign countries. We also recommend reviewing your docket to identify renewals and foreign [...]

Last week the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected a 2008 proposed settlement agreement (the “2008 Agreement”) between Google, Inc. and The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers.  The suit is based on a class action that alleges Google violated publishers’ and authors’ copyrights in its efforts [...]

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) has approved a request by ICM Registry (“ICM”) for the use of .xxx (also known as “dot triple-X”) as a top level domain name (“TLD”).   The approval of .xxx will provide all the same rights as other TLDs but will be made available only to the [...]