Patent maintenance fees are required to be paid on a granted patent 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after a patent is granted. As an Austin Patent Attorney, it is important to docket these dates upon a patent issuing and contacting my client 3 months in advance of the maintenance fees date to determine if they [...]
Netflix recently had a patent application publish for technology directed towards parallel streaming of data to different devices. This is a link to the patent application U.S. patent application #US 20130173758. At a high level the patent application describes methods for a content player to stream media using multiple network connections. As known in streaming [...]
I was curious to see what patents Sony had on controller developments that may be used for the PS4, this link is to a published patent for one of the patent applications Sony may have for the upcoming PS4 (link to patent). In this blogpost, I will discuss some of the features of the controllers [...]
Nintendo recently had one of their patents associated with the Wii U publish, US Patent Application Number 2013/0109473 (LINK) . US patents are published 18 months after they are their priority date. Thus, this patent application was filed in 2011. If you are interested, this is a link to one of my blogposts that reviews [...]
FITBIT is a company that manufactures wireless-enabled wearable devices that measures fitness related data, such as the number of steps a user’s has walked, hours slept, etc. My main reason for writing this blog was due to my interest in both patents and fitness related technology. Due to this, I was interested to see the [...]
As a patent attorney living in Austin, Texas, I have to deal with patent examiners at the USPTO when responding to office actions. My experiences with patent examiners at the USPTO are typically positive, although many of my patent attorney colleagues sometimes disagree. I do not view patent examiners as the enemy; they just have [...]
An Austin Patent Attorney’s overview of Pre-Appeal Brief Conference Request In a few instances as a patent attorney I felt that a patent examiner at the USPTO is being completely unreasonable in their rejection of claims. However, in these instances after amending the claims and working with the patent examiner to differentiate the claims and [...]
I was curious to see what inventions Elon Musk was directly involved (i.e. a noted inventor) in regarding TESLA. By being listed as a co-inventor of a patent application, others can tell what inventors had a part in developing the claimed technology in the patent application or subsequently granted patent. After a very brief review, [...]
Adding “company,” “.com,” or “.org” will not make a trademark distinct. In trademark law there are different categories of distinctiveness. The categories include: (1) arbitrary or fanciful, (2) suggestive, (3) descriptive, or (4) generic. An arbitrary or fanciful mark is the strongest type of protection a mark can receive, and the mark bears no logical [...]
I have recently started reviewing recently published patent applications for companies that seem to have interesting technology, such as Tesla, Apple, Microsoft Kinect, gaming companies, and IRobot. IRobot recently had a patent application published with the USPTO for a “Robot Confinement” system. This patent application US 20130103194 is directed towards confining a robot in a [...]