Companies can use patent families to reduce costs associated with obtaining patents, increase the number of patents obtained and increase the claimed scope of patent protection. A patent family is a set of patents that utilize the same disclosure of a patent and have the same priority date. Patent attorney’s file most original patent applications [...]
I was recently published in Texas Lawyer magazine (www.TexasLawyer.com, article here). I wrote an article discussing how companies can utilize patent families to increase their patent protection scope while lowering their costs associated with obtaining the patents.
So you have filed your trademark, waited for an Examiner at the USPTO to review your trademark, and you have received an Office Action from the USPTO stating that there is a “likelihood of confusion” of your trademark an existing trademark. How do you respond to the trademark office action? The first step is to [...]
In this case, Vistan is the owner of US Patent No 5,870,949 is directed towards appliances, and more specifically towards a pitting apparatus with a box cam. Claims 5 and 12 are at issue in this case. For your reference, claim 5 is reproduced below: 5. A fruit pitting apparatus, including: a frame; holders having [...]
AUSTIN PATENT ATTORNEY OVERVIEW: Ibormeith IP, LLC was is the assignee of US Patent Number 6,313,749, which is directed towards monitoring conditions affecting a vehicle driver’s sleepiness and warning the driver before the drive falls asleep. The monitor in the ‘749 patent takes into account multiple factors associated with sleepiness including the driver’s circadian rhythm, [...]
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 [...]