Imagine That IP Law Blog

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on October 28, 2021 that Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta and its stock ticker from FB to MVRS.

This does not mean that the social media app will be changing its name to Meta. Instead it signals a shift in corporate strategy. It appears that that Meta will be the parent company under which its social media applications (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) will become subsidiaries along with potential new business in the fields of augmented and virtual reality. In other words, Facebook’ goodwill, which it claims in its 2020 annual ... Read More ›

Companies face many hurdles when bringing a new product to market, including technical problems, regulatory requirements and changing market forces. Introducing a new drug or medical device to the market introduces additional regulatory hurdles before both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The strategies for meeting these regulatory requirements may often seem contradictory, and can be a trap for the unwary.  This ultimately doomed the Belcher Pharmaceutical patent as will be explained in detail below.

When filing a patent ... Read More ›

It takes two to tango, and if you are like many of us still working remotely, you may use a two-step identification method for accessing a secure network, such as the Duo Security two-part authentication dance to log onto your remote platform. Well, you might be dancing to something different one day now that the Federal Circuit has upheld validity of a patent owned by Duo competitor CosmoKey. In CosmoKey Solutions, GMBH & Co. KG. v. Duo Security, LLC (Fed. Cir, Oct. 3, 2021), the appeals court reversed a Delaware District Court ruling that CosmoKey’s authentication patent U.S ... Read More ›

Scam solicitations involving intellectual property notices have plagued trademark and patent owners for many years. As technology and scammer sophistication improve, these schemes are becoming more prevalent and confusing, and a growing international problem. Currently the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is tracking over 50 such scams originating in the U.S. and dozen overseas. Staying vigilant is the best protection.

Typically, these fraudulent solicitations target owners of U.S. registrations and patents. They often provide misleading deadline information ... Read More ›

On September 29, 2021, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced a bipartisan bill, “Restoring the America Invents Act.” The bill would roll back changes introduced by the courts and former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu. Specifically, the bill would “restore” aspects of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and the inter partes review (IPR) and post-grant review (PGR) programs.

The purpose of the bill is “to address problems for small businesses and ordinary Americans caused by poor-quality patents” according to the Senators’ joint ... Read More ›

Let’s face it: patents are expensive and most fail to be profitable. For any typical patent portfolio, the challenge is to efficiently weed out the winners from the duds and then assert the winners strategically to effectively monetize the portfolio.

To successfully monetize a patent, one must: 1) prove infringement of one or more asserted claims, 2) defend the asserted claims against invalidity attacks, and 3) establish high-impact damages caused by the accused products’ infringement. So, how does one mine a portfolio for patents that are most likely to help achieve these ... Read More ›