| Patents |
| A patent is a federal statutory right that allows an inventor to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention without the inventor's permission for the limited period specified by the patent statute. If a person or other entity makes, uses, sells, offers for sale, or imports the invention covered by the patent, they have infringed the patent, and the patent owner may bring a lawsuit to seek relief. There are several defenses to allegations of patent infringement available to someone who is sued for patent infringement. Two of the available patent defenses are that the allegedly infringing activity is not an infringement of the patent and that the patent is not valid and cannot be enforced. More... |
| Patent Law: Hatch-Waxman Act |
| (The Hatch-Waxman Act )More... |
| Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism |
| A copyright holder has the exclusive rights to reproduce, display, transmit, perform, and modify a work as well as the right to publicly perform a sound recording by digital transmission. There are exemptions in the Copyright Act that provide for certain exceptions to those exclusive rights, many in favor of limited nonprofit educational purposes. If none of the exemptions apply, the proposed use of someone else's copyrighted work will probably be copyright infringement. If proper attribution is required and is missing, the proposed use will also be plagiarism. Copyright laws prohibit plagiarism.More... |
| WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property |
| The first successful attempt to establish international rights to intellectual property was the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which was first adopted in 1886 and was modified several times. The Convention is presently administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization. Although U.S. copyright law was significantly different from that established by the Berne Convention, resulting in the United States' refusal to accept the Convention for several years, the United States changed its copyright laws quite significantly in the 1970s and subsequently signed the Convention. A major criticism of the Berne Convention was its lack of enforcement mechanisms. More... |
| Patent Law |
| In order to be novel, an invention cannot have been previously patented, described in a printed publication, or used or known by others prior to its invention by the patent applicant. To be known by others, a patent must have been fully disclosed and the disclosure must be accessible to the public in the United States. Only minimal use of an invention by others is necessary to disqualify patent eligibility as long as the use is accessible to the public, which is the case if no steps were taken to conceal the use. Experimental use by the inventor to test the invention is not a use that will disqualify patent eligibility. Printed publication of a description constitutes accessible disclosure of the invention as long as the publication is distributed or is filed in such a way that a member of the public could find it by exercising reasonable diligence. Patents are usually published, which also constitutes printed publication that will negate patent eligibility. If a patent is not published, the relevant inquiry is whether the exact thing to be patented was previously patented and not merely described in an application that ultimately protected some other invention. More... |
Mauro Law Offices, P.C.
