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USPTO Hands Out 1 Millionth Design Patent

IP Law 360

Patent and Trademark Office issued its 1 millionth design patent to a licensed cosmetologist on Tuesday as more inventors apply for design patent protection than any other time in history.

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What do dashed lines in a design patent mean?

Patent Trademark Blog

What is the meaning of broken or dashed lines in a design patent? While I’m not sure if you can call it a loophole, US design patents enable a particular option in the drawings that can potentially broaden protection. In a US design patent, the claimed design comprises what is drawn in solid lines.

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Can you file a design patent continuation application?

Patent Trademark Blog

What is a design patent continuation application? US patent law allows an applicant to file a “child” patent application while the “parent” application is still pending. This rule applies to both utility and design patent applications. Be careful though.

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Suffolk University Law School IP Center, Fourth Annual Intellectual Property & Innovation Conference

43(B)log

Design patents play a role when we have them, typically a handbag/jewelry/diamond cuts/chain designs/shoes. Issue: legal is often the last to know of new designs, so you need to know before the design is launched: need to explain that legal needs to be part of the process. Apple v Samsung changed perceptions.

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Fed. Circ. Axes Inventor's $1.25M IP Win Under On-Sale Bar

IP Law 360

The Federal Circuit wiped out inventor Larry Junker's $1.25 million win against two medical device companies, finding Thursday that his patented catheter insertion design was unenforceable because it was offered for sale more than a year before he applied for the design patent.

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Guest Post by Prof. Hrdy & Dan Brean: The Patent Law Origins of Science Fiction

Patently-O

Hrdy, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at University of Akron School of Law, and Daniel H. Are inventions described in works of science fiction patentable? It may surprise you, then, to learn that the genre of science fiction is deeply indebted to patent law and patent theory. Guest post by Camilla A.

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Patent – a shield for modern biotechnology

Biswajit Sarkar Copyright Blog

Thus, a legal safeguard should be provided to inventors for their inventions to keep their interest in science alive. In modern biology research, inventors come from various disciplines such as pharmaceutical, environmental, agricultural, and dairy, and all of them are involved in improving the quality of life.

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