The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) announced on May 24 that it had accelerated its transition to electronic trademark registration certificates. Going forward, the USPTO joins other countries, including Canada and the EU, in only issuing electronic trademark registration certificates unless otherwise requested. This change...
The “Great Resignation.” The “Great Migration.” No matter what you call it, the current employment market is placing incredible stress on businesses, many of which are struggling to find enough employees to simply cover shifts. Pay increases and higher recruiting costs, consequently, continue to rise. On top of these challenges, inflation and...
Intellectual Property (or “IP”) is commonly defined as a group of legal rights that provide protection over things people and businesses create or invent. It might sound straightforward, but there is a lot of confusion over what can actually be protected and what cannot. Who needs to be concerned with IP Protection? We’ve all heard the phrase,...
Davis|Kuelthau IP attorneys contributed to the 6th edition of Trade Marks USA: Trends and Developments 2022, published by Chambers Global Practice Guide. This guide is published within various areas of law and jurisdictions where a selection of legal experts, chosen by Chambers, elaborates on important legal issues in relation to the current...
Have you heard of a “design” patent? Maybe someone you know mentioned this as a less expensive alternative to a “regular” U.S. patent. The U.S. patent laws actually define three basic types of patents: utility patents, design patents, and plant patents. Utility Patents Utility patents are by far the most common type of patent. To date, over 11...
In business, many situations require you to share sensitive and confidential information with another individual or company. To ensure the other party respects the confidentiality of this information, a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, is often used. But when is the right time to utilize an NDA? And why should you consider them as part of your...
The mergers and acquisitions market continues to be hot. While it was initially unclear how the pandemic would affect it, the M&A market has proven to be highly adaptable and has recovered nicely. Historically low borrowing costs mean motivated buyers, and while it continues to be a seller’s market, smart business owners are those that are...
Social media is in the middle of many things we do these days. Thus, intellectual property law gets pulled right in and failure to take basic steps to protect your assets can be detrimental to your intellectual property rights(1). This article focuses on three well-known intellectual property types, their interaction with social media, and...
The M&A market has been booming, with the last five years moving at a head-spinning pace. COVID-19 may have momentarily dampened the market, but the fourth quarter of 2020 rebounded to be the strongest quarter in recent memory. 2021 is setting up to look even stronger, but all good things come to an end. Eventually. Given all the...
The practice of using, and reusing, software interfaces written by others is common within the field of software engineering and development. Multiple federal circuits have held that software source code, as a whole, can be copyrighted, but the question as to what extent code can be copied, particularly API code, was an unanswered question. In...
