Imagine That IP Law Blog

It is March, and while love celebrated on Valentine’s Day may be in the air for many, breakups are inevitable. In the case of a breakup between an employer and an employee, the departure of an employee with access or knowledge of the employer’s intellectual property (IP) can put the employer at risk for IP theft or exposure. Disputes over IP ownership can have significant negative impact on a company’s value, growth potential, and reputation, even if the company ultimately comes out the victor. Therefore, it is critical to have a well-defined and consistent exit process for ... Read More ›

Greater flexibility in remote working environments for employees has led to an increase in the revolving door of new and departing employees and greater challenges for employers to keep up with on-boarding and exiting procedures to protect corporate intellectual property (IP) rights. Such intellectual property rights typically include patents which protect inventions; trademarks which protect a company’s brand and reputation; copyrights which protect works of authorship and creativity; and trade secrets which protect a company’s confidential or propriety ... Read More ›

Intellectual property (IP), like other forms of property, is an asset that can be subject to contractual obligations and agreements between multiple parties. Due to the unique nature of IP as compared to physical assets, the provisions governing IP agreements also have unique characteristics. Parties to these agreements must take special care to ensure that the scope of the agreements are clearly defined, in addition to making each party’s obligations explicit. IP agreements can come in a variety of forms, such as license agreements, assignment agreements, and joint ... Read More ›

What if someone told you not all clauses in a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) are created equally? This was one of several lessons that could be drawn from SiOnyx LLC v. Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., 981 F.3d 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2020) which involved an NDA that contained several clauses, some of which ended up being more important than others.

At the beginning of their engagement in or around 2006-2007, SiOnyx was a startup and Hamamatsu was an established manufacturer interested in the technology that SiOnyx was developing. The parties entered into an NDA to allow them to share confidential ... Read More ›

The requirements for ownership of a patent and the right to bring suit for the enforcement of the patent would seem to be well settled in patent law. As demonstrated in the recently decided Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (Case 2019-2244), AntennaSys, Inc. v. AQYR Technologies, Inc., et al., overlooking the ownership or enforcement requirement can result in wasted time and cost for the litigants and frustration for the courts. This article raises awareness of the nuances of ownership and enforcement rights in the hope of avoiding the cost and frustrations for all involved.

The ... Read More ›