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Patent Office Remains Open During Government Shutdown

The United States Patent and Trademark Office remains open despite the general government shutdown that began October 1, 2013.  Using prior year reserve fee collections to operate, the Patent Office expects to run “business as usual” for approximately four weeks. Based on a comparison of fee collections to operating requirements, the Patent Office will determine how long we will be able to operate in this capacity if the general government shutdown continues. Should the reserve funds become exhausted before the general government shutdown comes to an end, the Patent Office would also shut down,

  • Posted on: Oct 3 2013
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Obama’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Steps Down

Victoria Espinel, the White House’s first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, has stepped down from that position, sometimes referred to as the “IP Czar”.   Espinel, a former professor at the George Mason University School of Law, was appointed by President Obama in September 2009 and confirmed by the Senate later that year. As IP Enforcement Coordinator, Espinel was responsible for the development and implementation of the President’s overall strategy for the enforcement of intellectual property.  She encouraged development of best practices on ways to combat online piracy and the sale of counterfeit products on the Web and urged Congress to make illegal streaming of online content a felony.

  • Posted on: Aug 12 2013
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Raymond T. Chen appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

On August 1, 2013, the Senate unanimously confirmed the nomination of Raymond T. Chen to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  Judge Chen, the first Asian-Pacific American to serve on the court since Judge Shiro Kashiwa retired from the Federal Circuit in 1986, fills the seat vacated by Judge Richard Linn who took senior status on October 31, 2012.  Judge Chen is currently the youngest serving appellate court judge in the nation.  Nominated in February 2013 by President Obama,

  • Posted on: Aug 8 2013
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Legislation Proposed to Lower Tax Rate on Profits Derived from Patented Products

Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., recently introduced H.R. 2605 (the Manufacturing Innovation in America Act) which calls for lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 10 percent on a company’s profits derived from the sale of qualifying patented products.  This is Representative Schwartz’s most recent effort in her continuing fight for targeted tax cuts that promote innovative and emerging industries to create an environment for private sector job growth. A number of countries have already enacted tax incentives to spur the commercialization of R&D – – the UK having put in place such an incentive in April 2013.

  • Posted on: Aug 6 2013
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CDFS’s Pina Campagna, co-moderates the NYIPLA 2013 Half-Day Trademark CLE Seminar

Pina Campagna of Carter, DeLuca, Farrell & Schmidt, LLP served as co-moderator for the NYIPLA 2013 Half-Day Trademark CLE seminar held at the Princeton Club on July 17, 2013.  The Honorable Garrett E. Brown, Jr. (ret.), former Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey delivered the keynote address and spoke about the adverse effects of the sequestration and federal budget cuts on the Federal Judiciary.  William R. Covey, Deputy General Counsel and Director of the Office of Enrollment and Discipline of the United States Patent and Trademark Office provided an overview of the USPTO’s updated Rules of Professional Conduct. 

  • Posted on: Jul 29 2013
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Global Patent Search Network (GPSN) Now Available

The US Patent Office has announced that Chinese patent documents can now be searched in English or the Chinese language using the Global Patent Search Network (GPSN), a service now available via the USPTO website.  The GPSN is a result of cooperative effort between the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of the People’s Republic of China.  The data available include full text Chinese patents and machine translations for published Chinese applications, granted patents and utility models from 2008 to 2011.

  • Posted on: Jul 11 2013
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Dey, L.P. v. Sunovion Pharm., Inc.

The Federal Circuit recently tackled Dey, L.P v. Sunovion Pharm., Inc., No. 2012-1428 (Fed. Cir. 2013), which presented an unusual twist regarding the ever-familiar public use bar codified in pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).  Specifically, in defending the patent infringement suit brought by Dey, Sunovion argued that some of Dey’s patents were invalid on grounds that Sunovion’s own clinical trial constituted a prior public use of Dey’s invention within the meaning of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).  Sinovion at 2.  This unusual case departs from the typical fact patterns involving the prior public use bar in that,

  • Posted on: Jun 11 2013
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In re Morsa – Challenging Enablement of Prior Art

With its recent decision in In re Morsa, No. 2012-1609 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 5, 2013), the Fed. Cir. lowered the burden on an applicant to argue that a cited non-patent publication prior art reference is not enabling. The Board of Patent Appeals had interpreted the Court’s prior ruling in In re Antor Media Corp., 689 F.3d 1282, 1288 (Fed. Cir. 2012), as requiring a patent applicant to produce evidence in the form of declarations and affidavits to overcome a presumption of enablement in a cited prior art reference. In In re Antor Media Corp.,

  • Posted on: Apr 26 2013
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