By: Mark R. Malek As you may recall, my last couple of articles have been about the different statuses that an inventor can claim when paying fees to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The first of these series of articles was an introduction to the micro-entity status, which allows inventors that qualify as […]
Widerman Malek Law Blog
What Happens If You Claim The Wrong Entity Status In The Patent Office?
By: Mark R. Malek In my last article, I outlined the new filing status in the Patent Office that can save inventors even more money in the patent process – that of the micro-entity. As you may recall from that article, when filing a patent application (and throughout the patent prosecution process), you must pay […]
Patent Office Fees – The Micro Entity
By: Mark R. Malek As many of you may know, the United States Patent System recently went through a little transformation on March 15, 2013. The biggest and most public of these transformations was the transition from a first to invent system to a first to file system (more on that later). One thing that […]
March Madness and Other NCAA Trademarks
By: Mark R. Malek So the big tournament starts tonight – that’s right, we are starting with 64 teams and the team that goes through the tournament undefeated brings home the big trophy. Half the fun is looking for that Cinderella team that upsets a few teams on the way, maybe even makes it to […]
Amending A Patent Application After Allowance
By: Mark R. Malek As has often been the case with some of my articles in the past, I like to introduce little practice tips as something interesting happens in my day to day life of prosecuting patent applications here at Widerman & Malek. I recently received a call from an Examiner on a case […]
Reviving A Patent That Was Abandoned For Failure To Pay Maintenance Fees
By: Mark R. Malek You may recall that my last article was directed to the requirement to pay maintenance fees in order to keep your patent alive. As was discussed in that article, maintenance fees must be paid at 3.5 years, 7.5 years and 11.5 years after the patent has issued. When someone has not paid […]
Reviving An Abandoned Patent Application
By: Mark R. Malek If you haven’t noticed, many of my posts lately have revolved around the questions that I get from various clients. This one was a tough one. Not necessarily from the perspective of not knowing what to do, but having to hear the horror story from this client. Unfortunately, it is a […]
Patent Maintenance Fees
By: Mark R. Malek So you have just received your Notice of Allowance for your patent application. In the Notice of Allowance, there is a requirement for you to pay an issue fee and a publication fee. You may have paid the publication fee early pursuant to a request for early publication. Section 1129 of […]
Different Types of Patent Applications
By: Mark R. Malek My last article provided a brief overview of the patent system. I also wrote another article about why patents are somewhat important. This prompted me to reflect on my typical conversations with potential clients, and the questions that generally arise as to the different types of patents. This article will attempt to […]
A Brief Overview On Patents
By: Mark R. Malek In my previous article, I indicated that a patent is important to protect the rights of innovators and to encourage them to continue to innovate. This is done by providing a patent holder with an exclusive right to exclude others from making, using, selling, or offering to sell the invention that is […]