February 12, 2010

The Copyright Office increased its fees for certain types of filings effective August 1, 2009.  The new fee schedule can be found at http://www.copyright.gov/docs/fees.html#ftn.  Under the new fee schedule, the fee for online registration for a basic claim would remain…

February 12, 2010

ICANN (the body responsible for regulating domain names) is expanding the domain name system to better reach an international audience.  Domain names consisting of non-latin characters, including Chinese, Arabic, and Hebrew, are now permitted.  The program enables countries and territories…

February 8, 2010

February 11th is National Inventors’ Day in the United States.  It is celebrated on the birthday of one of the best inventors in the history of the United States: Thomas Alva Edison.  Edison has over 1,000 U.S. patents issued in…

November 24, 2009

The Midwest Intellectual Property Symposium was held November 19 & 20 at the University Hotel and Conference Center in Indianapolis, IN.  The event was sponsored by the Indiana Continuing Legal Education Foundation and featured presentations by speakers in a variety…

November 12, 2009

Patent searching is typically the first step in determining whether to pursue patent protection for an invention.  On November 11, 2009, Woodard, Emhardt attorneys Chuck Schmal and Doug Gallagher presented a class on techniques for conducting patent searches using the…

November 10, 2009

Monday the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the highly anticipated Bilski v. Kappos case.  The Court’s decision in this case, which is expected by the spring of 2010, will shape what types of technology is and is not…

November 4, 2009

ICANN (the body responsible for regulating domain names) is planning to expand the domain name system to better reach an international audience.  Domain names consisting of non-latin characters are currently set to be launched on November 16, 2009.  These characters…

October 27, 2009

On September 24, 2009, Thailand (TH) became the 142nd Contracting State of the PCT.  Thailand will become bound by the PCT on December 24, 2009, and all PCT applications filed on or after December 24 will automatically designate Thailand.

October 21, 2009

A new patent search tool offered by WIPO is available here.  The tool includes about 1.6 million PCT applications as well as the patent collections of ARIPO, Cuba, Israel, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore, South Africa and Vietnam.  Additional collections will be added in…

October 9, 2009

The USPTO announced today that it will officially rescind its controversial claiming and continuations rules package next week.  The restrictive rules package sought to impose extensive limits on the way applicants could claim their inventions and on the number of…

October 7, 2009

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced yesterday that it is expanding its initial First Action Interview Pilot Program.  This program entitles an applicant to an interview with the patent examiner assigned to their case prior to the issuance…

October 1, 2009

The US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), via a press release on its web site, has announced that the USPTO Joint Labor-Management Task Force has issued a joint proposal for amending the Examiner Count System.  The task force comprised senior…