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Legal Advantage, LLC Appoints Jeffrey Sobek as Regional Sales Director

(Press Release) – June 15, 2010 – Bethesda, MD- Legal Advantage, LLC, a leading provider of intellectual property and litigation support services, today announced that Jeffrey Sobek has been hired as the company's Midwest Region Sales Director. Sobek will head up the company’s Chicago, Illinois location and will assume sales and marketing responsibilities for the company’s award winning patent illustration, patent research, patent translation, and IP trial graphics services for the states of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin.

Sobek, an attorney, has more than 8 years of sales experience in the Chicago technology marketplace, in addition to having previously held the position of General Counsel of a Chicago telecommunications company. He graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University and earned his Juris Doctorate from the John Marshall Law School. While in law school, Sobek was a member of The John Marshall Law Review and had the honor of publishing his article entitled "Balancing Individual Privacy Rights and the Rights of Trademark Owners in Access to the WHOIS" in the Fall 2004 John Marshall Law Review. Sobek also received an L.L.M. (Masters of Laws) with Honors in Information Technology and Privacy Law from The John Marshall Law School in May of 2008.

"We expect Jeff to be a great addition to our team and an important asset to our customers,” said David Hemperly, Legal Advantage’s Vice President of Business Development. “His knowledge of the legal process, experience as a legal professional and sales expertise are a unique combination of skills that will add additional value to the services Legal Advantage offers to our clients," Hemperly added.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage is a leading provider of cost-effective legal services to intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, paralegals, and individual inventors. For nine years Legal Advantage has been a leading provider in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement, and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and Design Services, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and 3-D animation. To date, we have successfully completed over 19,000 projects for law firms and corporations throughout the United States and abroad.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Ottawa, and Toronto.

For more information, pleas visit our website at http://legaladvantage.net

created on 07/14/2010| 0| 0

Details about Freedom to Operate Design Patent & Utility Patent

Freedom to operate (FTO) search is also known as ‘Freedom to practice’ (FTP) or ‘Product clearance’ search.

As the name suggests, it is understood that a freedom to operate is the option or the right that makes you free from all legal obstacles to commercialize your product or process it in a particular country or geographical region.

Legal obstacles for your product or process could primarily be valid patents, designs and (or) trademark rights. However, any other IP rights based on a particular jurisdiction (country or region) should NOT be overlooked. For example many countries in the world are NOT a member of The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) yet.

Intellectual property rights are limited to particular jurisdictions (countries or regions). No such system exists that can have a single IP protection for one invention throughout the world with a single legal action. Certainly, we know that national laws differ in different jurisdictions.

Hence before thinking of commercializing a product or a process in a particular jurisdiction, it is vital to verify the patent rights which cover the technological aspects of the product or process as well as the designs and trademarks associated.

Claims are the portion of the patent that defines the scope of the invention or protection. Often the patent claims are understood by considering the specifications including the drawings. Hence needless to say, interpretation of patent claims requires considerable skills and experience.

When a patent is issued in a country or region that claims the elements of your product or process and you wish to commercialize your product in that country or region, you have many options to verify and adopt.

Term of issued patent: An issued utility patent remains active for 20 years from the date of filing (consider the patent term adjustments made that increases the patent life beyond 20 years period). Claims in an expired patent are in the public domain and your product is free to operate based on those features. Design patents stay live for 14 years from date of issue.
Maintenance of issued patent: An issued utility patent may get expired before the 20 years period unless the maintenance fees are paid in time. In USPTO it is 3.5years, 7.5 years and 11.5 years from the date of the original patent grant. No maintenance fee is required for design patents.

Pending Applications: A pending application could be an obstacle as it has a chance to be converted into a patent. However, a close look at the prosecution of the application is required as the claims of an application may get changed to a great extent when it is issued compared to the published claims. Also there are chances that the application may get rejected by the patent office or abandoned or withdrawn by the applicant.

Multiple patents. Your product or process could be infringing multiple patents. Even some features of your product or process do not infringe any valid patent claims, other features could be infringing. So it is necessary to check all the steps in your process or the components in your product to make sure they are free to be used.

Get the patent license i.e. purchase the patent. Make an agreement with the patent owner to use the patented technology or protected invention for the specific claim elements, in specific markets and for a specific period of time. Based on the potential of the patent and the type of agreement made, the patent owner may deal for a one-time settlement or for a periodic royalty payment or both.

Cross-licensing. If you have a patent that partly covers your product or process features, but some other features are covered by another’s patent, make an agreement with the other patent owner to grant a license to each other where both the parties can make use of the claimed components of one another.

Patent pools. This is an agreement among patent owners to cross-license a set of their patents to one another or to third parties, by which two or more entities working on interrelated technical domains can establish a pool of patent rights that any of them can use.

Design around. You may design around the patents that create obstacles. This could be possible by advancing your research or amending the product or process features to evade infringing others patents.

Our solid experience in freedom to operate and infringement search and analysis with the world leading databases and tools provide us an advantage to prepare a well informative report that gives a clear idea of whether your product or process is likely to infringe any active patents and (or) trademarks. We provide the status of the patents that helps you calculate the potential of the threats and the opportunities.

Sample Design Patent: http://legaladvantage.net/designpatentdrawing.htm

Sample Utility Patent: http://legaladvantage.net/utilitypatentdrawing.htm

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and patent design Services, document review, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

created on 07/05/2010| 0| 0

What is Patentability Search?

It is imperative for someone who seeks patent protection to understand the scope of the invention to be patented, whether it is new or known, whether it has some economical benefit in comparison to the available arts.

What can be considered as prior art?

United States patents and published applications
Foreign patents and published applications
Articles and Journals
Company websites
Other web sources
Product brochures
News
Magazines
Books
Traditional knowledge
A discussion in a public chat room between two individuals
Whatever is available to public

It is thus essential to conduct a search that includes all the above categories to get a feel of whether the invention is novel and can be patented before proceeding to file a patent.

A prior art search can save both money and time that you would otherwise spend in the filing process for a patent. In other words a prior art search saves an applicant from the pains of rejections by the patent office. It may also help you to forecast your success or obstacles before you enter the work.

You can change the destiny of your patent application! How?

Our broad prior art search provides you enough information that would absolutely help you to vigilantly design the set of your patent claims, thus making the claims tougher with better chances of getting the invention granted. Not only this but also our well informative reports help saving your valuable time in understanding the scope of the available prior art.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and patent design Services, document review, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

created on 06/14/2010| 0| 0

Hiring Patent Illustrators and Project Managers? Test for Drawing Ability

You wouldn't hire a pilot without ensuring he or she know how to fly a plane would you? How can a hard working patent illustration company better serve its clients and their clients? It can sometimes come down to hiring people with that inborn ability to quickly and accurately visualize the most complex shape, and put it down on paper (or these days on a computer screen) without relying on the crutch of technology.

People often mistake the ability to use drawing and drafting software for the ability to draw, but they are two quite different things; the computer is, as the saying goes, 'just a tool' like a pencil or ruler. The real process takes place in the mind of the artist.

For this reason, the best illustration companies will actively test candidates for drawing ability early in the hiring process. Such a test can be as simple as asking for a 10 minute hand sketch of a common consumer item such as a telephone or watch. Does the sketch reveal good perspective? Does it show good proportion? Was it done quickly? These are the clues to look for, clues (among others) to future success as a patent illustrator. And, of course, it helps to give the same test to all candidates systematically, making it easier to compare the results.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and patent design Services, document review, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

created on 04/16/2010| 0| 0

The Basics of a Design Patent and Design Patent Searches

esign patents are based on the ornamental aspects of surface decoration, aesthetic configuration, appearance and shape of an item. In contrast to a utility patent, a design patent is issued for aesthetic features for a new or an improved outward appearance; however, the subject claimed in the design patent should have some practical utility.

To be eligible for a design patent, the subject must satisfy the ornamental standards and be novel. When viewed through the eyes of an imaginary designer skilled in the art, the design must be non-obvious compared to any previously available design. Also, a design patent cannot be obtained for ornamental configurations that are not visible when the product is in use.

The prior art search for a design patent requires a close look at the ornamental aspects in any existing designs similar to the new design attempting to be patented. In essence, it is a visual search through volumes of classification binders at the USPTO. Due to the fact that design patents have minimal words defining the aspects of the design, a prior art search mainly involves design class codes and only broad keywords gathered after the typical USPTO design patent claim of “The ornamental design for…”

It is possible to obtain a design patent as well as a utility patent for the same invention if each patent type fulfills the respective patent standards. In such cases separate utility and design searches have to be performed.

An object with a design that is substantially similar to the design claimed in a valid design patent cannot be made, used, sold, copied or imported into the United States. A substantially similar copy is liable for patent infringement. In the case of a conflict, to detect infringement, evaluation of a patented design compared to an accused design involves satisfying the "Ordinary Observer" test, which was introduced by the United States Supreme Court case Gorham Co. v. White, 81 U.S. 511 (1871).

According to Gorham’s “Ordinary observer” test, there is infringement "if in the eye of an ordinary observer, giving such attention as a purchaser usually gives, two designs are substantially the same, the resemblance is such as to deceive such an observer, inducing him to purchase one supposing it to be the other."

This "ordinary observer" test is similar to the trademark infringement conditions i.e. whether there is a "likelihood of confusion." The patented and accused designs in the case of Gorham Co. v. White were both silverware handle designs. The attempts of the defendant, White, to establish the dissimilarity between the two designs was eventually ignored

Originating with Litton Systems, Inc. v. Whirlpool Corporation, 728 F.2D1423 (1984), the Federal Circuit added to Gorham’s “ordinary observer” test a second test i.e. "point of novelty" test required to deal with design patent infringement suits. i.e. the accused device contains 'substantially the same points of novelty as the patented design that differentiated the patented design from the prior art’.

On September 22, 2008, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Egyptian Goddess, Inc. v. Swisa, Inc. (Fed. Cir. Dkt. No. 2006-1562) added conditions to the "ordinary observer" test established by the Supreme Court in 1871. The Federal Circuit provided guidance that will likely benefit design patent plaintiffs. Egyptian Goddess suit alleged that Swisa had infringed its U.S. Design Patent No. 467,389 that claims a design for a nail buffer, consisting of a rectangular, hollow tube having a generally square cross-section and featuring buffer surfaces on three of its four sides.

However, Swisa’s product consists of a rectangular, hollow tube having a square cross-section, but featuring buffer surfaces on each of its four sides. The Federal Circuit observed that the difference of buffer surfaces in three sides in the design patent and buffer surfaces in all four sides in the Swisa buffers cannot be considered minor.
Much to the relief of many practitioners, the Federal Circuit found it difficult to implement the “point of novelty” test to a design patent because of the fact that it is difficult to provide a detailed verbal description of the claimed design. The Federal Circuit giving the decision for non-infringement unanimously held that the "ordinary observer" test was the sole test to determine design patent infringement, with the limitation that the ordinary observer is one with knowledge of the prior art. The ordinary observer test requires one to look for substantial similarity between the patented design and the accused design; but familiarity with the prior art is needed if the observer is to meaningfully compare the accused devices to the patented claim to evaluate the differences from previous designs.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and patent design Services, document review, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

Sample Design Patent Drawing : http://legaladvantage.net/designpatentdrawing.htm

Sample Utility patent Drawig : http://legaladvantage.net/utilitypatentdrawing.htm

For more information please visit http://legaladvantage.net

created on 04/15/2010| 0| 0

Judge Invalidates Human Gene Patent

A federal judge in Manhattan has stirred up the Intellectual Property community and specifically the biotech industry with a decision invalidating two patents on human genes relating to breast and ovarian cancer. This decision has the potential for far reaching effects on thousands of gene based patents, since approximately 20% of the human genes have been patented. United States District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet found the patents to be invalid because the genes are found in nature and cannot be patented.

“The resolution of these motions is based upon long recognized principles of molecular biology and genetics: DNA represents the physical embodiment of biological information, distinct in its essential characteristics from any other chemical found in nature. It is concluded that DNA's existence in an "isolated" form alters neither this fundamental quality of DNA as it exists in the body nor the information it encodes. Therefore, the patents at issue directed to "isolated DNA" containing sequences found in nature are unsustainable as a matter of law and are deemed unpatentable subject matter under 35 USC 101.”

What effect this ruling may have on the incentives for companies to conduct gene research is unknown for now, but it is likely that this decision will be appealed.

The case is Association for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 09cv4515, U.S. District Court for the District of New York.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and patent design Services, document review, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

created on 04/15/2010| 0| 0

Patents as Illustrations for Best Selling Literature

Here is something different; a departure from the day-to-day, utilitarian concerns of intellectual property protection.

The German artists Julius von Bismarck & Benjamin Maus have recognized the world's 7 million patent applications and 22 million interconnecting prior art references as a rich tapestry from which to pluck complex stories from the collective id. Not only this, but they have invented and constructed a machine to illustrate such never ending stories, one patent illustration at a time. They call this 'the Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus'.

The machine is a line plotter which draws on an unraveling scroll of paper. It draws upon information it finds on the internet and the USPTO databases. It takes selections from current bestselling books and parses the words into a series of existing patent illustrations which best represent the concept at hand. It then illustrates the connection between these "phrases" with shared prior art. Amazingly, this can be done with an average of 7 nodes of references. The illustrations themselves become the "language" of the story.

In a poetic way, this process synthesizes the literary present with the historic progress of mankind's scientific endeavors and the patent illustrations provide the thread which ties this all together. Patents present us with such a tidy time capsule of intellectual output. Patents represent the hopes and intentions of the inventor, as well as collective goals for progress and the technological focus of the current era. Although we don't often think of them in this way, a timely patent can often represent a zeitgeist of a technological or cultural era. After all, just imagine what a great story is represented by this.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and patent design Services, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

created on 04/02/2010| 0| 0

Rembrandts in the Attic: Utilizing University Patents To Create Entrepreneurship

In the FY2011 budget announcement last week, the Obama Administration proposed a program to bring to market some of the over one million patents held by Universities and Colleges. Called IMPACT- Innovation Model Program For Accelerating The Commercialization of Technologies- a vast majority of these one million patents are driven by $50 billion in Federal research dollars. Only a limited number of start ups (estimated at 550 in 2007) are spun off from this treasure trove of Intellectual Property. Recognizing this vast challenge and opportunity, the Administration and University of Southern California Provost Krisztina “Z” Holly proposes an ambitious new project.

The goal of the program is to stimulate innovation, create jobs and utilize these great assets held by our universities and colleges. These intellectual property assets are federally funded to the tune of easily over $50 billion per year.

In 2008 the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) estimated there were 3,388 federally funded research startups, and the impact of these startups is estimated by researchers at over $33.5 billion. The reality is that the potential is far larger. Universities traditionally either license the technology to established companies or it gets to market through faculty consulting, students going to industry themselves or on a smaller scale - University based startups. A large amount of IP sits on the proverbial shelf.

There are many programs created by universities and organizations like The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) that help bring the Technology Transfer Offices closer to the entrepreneurs. But entrepreneurs are traditionally very wary of approaching universities and licensing issues. This program recognizes the difficulty of taking raw research and commercializing it.

The project calls for ten beta sites to get $2 million in funding a year for five years. These beta sites would nurture a culture of entrepreneurship through three key components:
• Gap funding: University research is typically early stage and translating these breakthrough works into commercial ventures is difficult. These grants would enable entrepreneurs or researchers to develop into a venture that has some “societal” impact. University based start-ups are traditionally not developed, as the Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) are typically small and lack the reach and resources to reach and develop entrepreneurs. A typical TTO typically loses money as inventions can take up to ten years to generate royalty. The focus of TTOs is typically on larger licensing deals that generate revenue and rightly so.
• Community Building: In order for startups to succeed, they need an eco-system. We all know of the eco-systems in Silicon Valley in California or the Route 128 in Boston, MA or locally the I-270 Bio Tech corridor in Rockville, MD. These eco-systems have a local community that can enable these startups to succeed. From the ability to get out and build bridges with local entrepreneurs, businesses, talented engineers and marketers to Venture Capital firms, banks and prospective customers, this community building is key.
• Mentoring and Education: Young and first time entrepreneurs need a lot of education and strong mentoring. We have many great examples of companies that succeeded as a result of this including Dell, HP, RIM among others. Successful companies require talented teams who are nurtured and supported. Recognizing this need and addressing this early on will pay dividends. Addressing education through peer learning is critical as well. As a member of EO Network – www.eonetowrk.org, I can personally attest to how important peer learning and experience sharing can be.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and patent design Services, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

created on 03/23/2010| 0| 0

Patent Pools for Small Businesses & Independent Inventors

Frequently when I speak to inventors and small companies, I run across an issue which is painful to discuss with the larger IP community. How can I prevent other companies from infringing on my patent? How can I successfully license and monetize the good IP that I have?

I think the patent process is inherently unfair to the independent inventors and small businesses. That’s a bold statement to make as we work with both large and small businesses. However I know plenty of IP professionals that recognize this problem and want to work on solving this.

The key issue is that inefficiencies in the patent process limit innovation by creating an uneven playing field for small inventors. While 70% of patents are issued to small businesses and independent inventors, their ability to benefit is thwarted by the rising cost of enforcement ($4 million on average) and the inability of companies to efficiently license their inventions. The stats cited by Inventionstatistics.com are mind numbing. See http://www.inventionstatistics.com/Patent_Litigation_Costs.html.

I recommend that we ask the Federal government to be pro-active. A new Patent and Trademark Office division focused on small business and independent inventor patents should create “patent pools” based on voluntary participation. These pools, which would be similar to those created by the largest corporate patent owners, should have (1) a common licensing and enforcement process and (2) standard market based royalty rates.

Three hundred fifty thousand patents are annually issued to independent inventors and small businesses – double the number issued to large corporations or ones prosecuted by top 300 IP firms. But it is presently difficult for small inventors to benefit from their ideas because of high enforcement costs and a difficult licensing environment.

In 1997 it cost $300,000 to enforce a patent (Tomima Edmark, “Rest Insured,” Entrepreneur Magazine, November 1997 based on AIPLA’s 1997 Economic Survey). Managing IP pegs the costs today between $3 to $5 million dollars based on appeal to over $4 million. I know from personal experience that to be true. Small inventors cannot afford these costs and therefore do not protect their patents. The market for their inventions is further constrained by the difficulties that companies have in licensing from small inventors. There are simply too many inventors out there for a licensor to deal with effectively.

A potential solution is to adapt a structure developed by the most innovative large corporations. Some companies like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the pharmaceutical giant, and Alnylam have put this patent pool idea to good use. Earlier this year, they created a patent pool to focus on treating 16 neglected tropical diseases. The goal is to find treatments for infections and parasitic diseases. These diseases mainly impact the poorest nations of the world. This pool allows access to 800 patents and another 1,500 patents of Alnylam for finding the cure. However, the majority of patent pools are focused on technology where standards have either, not developed, or the risks of litigation and the cost of cross-licensing is too prohibitive. I believe the same principles can be applied here.

As large technology companies have pooled thousands of patents together in order to lower litigation and transaction costs. These pools have standardized licensing and enforcement procedures in critical technology functions. While this mechanism is not available for small inventors today, it can easily be adapted to their needs.

The creation of an effective patent pool would require several critical steps:

• Setting Royalty Rates: Royalty rates do not vary significantly over time and only large companies and the Government have access to these rates. An established minimum rate by technology would allow inventors to successfully understand the possible returns from licensing their patents.

• Creating an Enforcement Mechanism: The creation of a patent pool would allow for enhanced enforcement efficiency. First, the pool could itself manage a “small claims” type patent process for patent rights that are in the pool. In addition, cost sharing of litigation expenses across small inventors should be possible.

• Contributions: The participation of small inventors in a program of this type should be voluntary. Given my own experience managing an intellectual property business, I believe there would be tremendous demand. I believe the pool can set up a vehicle for assessing the quality of the patents and test out the basic validity of the patents. We at Legal Advantage perform validity prior art search studies. We also rank the relevance of these technologies for our clients in search studies like infringement analysis or FTO clearance. I can see these studies being easily applied by experienced IP professionals for such patent pools.

By creating such patent pools, the PTO and the government should interfere in this free markets to correct for market failures. The establishment of small inventor patent pools would correct a systemic bias in the licensing and enforcement process, and in so doing potentially unleash a new wave of American innovation and creativity.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and patent design Services, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

created on 03/22/2010| 0| 0

Why Realistic Shading will Reduce USPTO Rejections

Why Realistic Shading will Reduce Rejections
Design patents are granted on the premise that the drawings that depict the matter’s innovations are accurate, true to life representations of the physical form of the object. Representing the true isometric silhouette, intricate details, hidden areas of the form, and figure-to-figure consistency are the basics to building design patent. What depicts the shape and nature of an object is the surface shading applied. Applying accurate line shading goes beyond the USPTO 37 CFR 1.84 Standards for drawings.

Lines shading is more than style, it is an art form
It is critical that patent illustrators are mindful of light and its shadow properties in design patents. Too often technical patent illustrators will neglect the necessity for a 45 degree light source, and freely shade their figures with little attention to this significant aspect. If you are drawing the figures for a spherical object, simply adding a handful arcs or curved lines inside the ring of a circle hardly demonstrates the light source that guides the examiner in defining the shape of that surface.

Is it convex or concave? Is a flat area represented? Does it have an equal radius around the perimeter? By using accelerated spacing and proper shadow placements, patent illustrators can define a surface with the aid of only a single figure, not having to use multiple to understand the volume of the form.

Reducing Rejections and Office Actions
A poorly shaded design patent may get approved for design patent illustrations, figure-to-figure consistency is king, and a lack of it will get you an office action. A properly shaded side view will be able to translate information back to the top view, allowing the examiner to better understand the subtle nuances of the patent. When the light source gets ignored, shading patterns differ from figure to figure, and the examiner will have a higher probability of misinterpreting a figures shape.

The Legal Advantage
Legal Advantage employs career graphic artists, engineers, and industrial designers as our patent illustrators and client liaisons. By sharing professional experiences, and industry skill sets, our designers are able to cross mentor and gain applicable knowledge from each other, and apply this knowledge to the needs of the patent world.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and Patent Design Services, document review, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

For more information please visit http://legaladvantage.net

created on 03/09/2010| 0| 0

Patent Illustration Attorney Vendor Relations with 3D CAD

We frequently encounter documents sent in by our clients, with images of 3D CAD models and screen captures of working 3D CAD models. IP professionals often do not ask inventors for these sophisticated 3D files seen in their PDF because they cannot open them.

Staff designers at Legal Advantage have practical experience working with 3D modeling, and because of our various backgrounds some are more familiar with manufacturing ready engineering CAD, other are artists with years of experience with surface modeling such as Maya and Rhino, and our Industrial Designers have hybrid skills with both. Simply put we have the technical background and software to handle any type of file thrown our way.

Manipulating 3D Files
While we gladly accept our clients PDF documents, we can open those 3D files, and send you back customized views, internal mechanics, exploded views, or compact 3D files that you could manipulate with your existing software. We prefer 3d files because we can generate true isometric views of the matter at hand, which we will use as a basis for our drawings. These exact views may have not been provided by your client. True 3D files can be manipulated to dramatically speed up drafting and increase accuracy.

3D File Types
You may be familiar with some of these file types, such as a 3d AutoCAD file or even STEP files. Follow the link to see the types of files we work with on a regular basis, and what you can request from your inventor for your next matter. Read more on File Format Tips on our Design Patent page.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and patent Design Services, document review, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

For more information please visit http://legaladvantage.net

created on 03/08/2010| 0| 0

Descriptive Geometry in Patent Illustration

In the best practices of both utility patent illustration and design patent illustration, there's an approach which is often very useful, but which is also often overlooked. When an inventor provides only the vaguest indication of a complex shape needed for a patent drawing, it falls to the illustrator to step up and "flesh out" the concept for the inventor and the IP professional.

Taking a 30-second sketch on a napkin through a reasoned process to create a formalized, perfect, geometric form can require the application of pure Euclidean reasoning and an instinctive use of spatial perception.

The best patent illustrators will not guess at where the claimed features go; they will reason it out carefully and logically, like Archimedes of Syracuse drawing his figures in the sand.

This relieves the inventor and the IP agent or lawyer of the burden to do any more than that simple napkin sketch. A real time saver and, as we all know, time saved is money saved. In today's economy, every little saving helps.

Another approach is to use 3D software to to generate a 3D model. This method allows the patent illustrator to extract accurate 2D images from any viewpoint. We will highlight this approach in a future.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and patent Design Services, document review, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

For more information please visit http://legaladvantage.net

created on 02/26/2010| 0| 0

Patent Pools for Small Businesses & Independent Inventors - An Idea Whose Time H

Frequently when I speak to inventors and small companies, I run across an issue which is painful to discuss with the larger IP community. How can I prevent other companies from infringing on my patent? How can I successfully license and monetize the good IP that I have?

I think the patent process is inherently unfair to the independent inventors and small businesses. That’s a bold statement to make as we work with both large and small businesses. However I know plenty of IP professionals that recognize this problem and want to work on solving this.

The key issue is that inefficiencies in the patent process limit innovation by creating an uneven playing field for small inventors. While 70% of patents are issued to small businesses and independent inventors, their ability to benefit is thwarted by the rising cost of enforcement ($4 million on average) and the inability of companies to efficiently license their inventions. The stats cited by Inventionstatistics.com are mind numbing. See http://www.inventionstatistics.com/Patent_Litigation_Costs.html.

I recommend that we ask the Federal government to be pro-active. A new Patent and Trademark Office division focused on small business and independent inventor patents should create “patent pools” based on voluntary participation. These pools, which would be similar to those created by the largest corporate patent owners, should have (1) a common licensing and enforcement process and (2) standard market based royalty rates.

Three hundred fifty thousand patents are annually issued to independent inventors and small businesses – double the number issued to large corporations or ones prosecuted by top 300 IP firms. But it is presently difficult for small inventors to benefit from their ideas because of high enforcement costs and a difficult licensing environment.

In 1997 it cost $300,000 to enforce a patent (Tomima Edmark, “Rest Insured,” Entrepreneur Magazine, November 1997 based on AIPLA’s 1997 Economic Survey). Managing IP pegs the costs today between $3 to $5 million dollars based on appeal to over $4 million. I know from personal experience that to be true. Small inventors cannot afford these costs and therefore do not protect their patents. The market for their inventions is further constrained by the difficulties that companies have in licensing from small inventors. There are simply too many inventors out there for a licensor to deal with effectively.

A potential solution is to adapt a structure developed by the most innovative large corporations. Some companies like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the pharmaceutical giant, and Alnylam have put this patent pool idea to good use. Earlier this year, they created a patent pool to focus on treating 16 neglected tropical diseases. The goal is to find treatments for infections and parasitic diseases. These diseases mainly impact the poorest nations of the world. This pool allows access to 800 patents and another 1,500 patents of Alnylam for finding the cure. However, the majority of patent pools are focused on technology where standards have either, not developed, or the risks of litigation and the cost of cross-licensing is too prohibitive. I believe the same principles can be applied here.

As large technology companies have pooled thousands of patents together in order to lower litigation and transaction costs. These pools have standardized licensing and enforcement procedures in critical technology functions. While this mechanism is not available for small inventors today, it can easily be adapted to their needs.

The creation of an effective patent pool would require several critical steps:

• Setting Royalty Rates: Royalty rates do not vary significantly over time and only large companies and the Government have access to these rates. An established minimum rate by technology would allow inventors to successfully understand the possible returns from licensing their patents.

• Creating an Enforcement Mechanism: The creation of a patent pool would allow for enhanced enforcement efficiency. First, the pool could itself manage a “small claims” type patent process for patent rights that are in the pool. In addition, cost sharing of litigation expenses across small inventors should be possible.

• Contributions: The participation of small inventors in a program of this type should be voluntary. Given my own experience managing an intellectual property business, I believe there would be tremendous demand. I believe the pool can set up a vehicle for assessing the quality of the patents and test out the basic validity of the patents. We at Legal Advantage perform validity prior art search studies. We also rank the relevance of these technologies for our clients in search studies like infringement analysis or FTO clearance. I can see these studies being easily applied by experienced IP professionals for such patent pools.

By creating such patent pools, the PTO and the government should interfere in this free markets to correct for market failures. The establishment of small inventor patent pools would correct a systemic bias in the licensing and enforcement process, and in so doing potentially unleash a new wave of American innovation and creativity.

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and Patent Design Services, document review, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

For more information please visit http://legaladvantage.net

created on 02/24/2010| 0| 0

Looking forward to 2010

Last week, we conducted our annual meeting to review 2009 and unveil 2010 plans. Our teams from all of our offices joined us in pushing forward the new plans for 2010. But first, we celebrated our victories from 2009. This was a record year in terms of picking up new clients, reaching out to the IP community, prior art projects, and build out of our web capability. We grew our exciting partnership with law schools ( Temple University Beasley School of Law, Franklin & Pierce Law Center, and others). We also launched a series of Continuing Legal Education courses. Today most of our classes are accredited in over 35 states across the US. With over 5% of IP professionals attending these events so far, we believe that is the right partnership approach with the intellectual property community.

We also launched our technical translation offerings for IP, opened offices in Toronto, rebuilt our website, and achieved global security certification, among other things. For our translation offering, we began serving our global clients by offering to assist their foreign filing in over 25 countries in 12 languages.

2010 brings new opportunities for us as we go deeper into our services. As the economy begins to show signs of life, we hope that you have been able to weather the storm and are in position to grow your business into 2010. For us at Legal Advantage this means a desire to reinvest with a purpose. We will launch a series of innovative new products that strengthen our core patent services.

These products and services are aimed at solving critical issues for patent prosecution and litigation. Offering software is a new path for us but one that we are excited about. We are investing in a new tool that will change how patent drawings can be checked for quality and accuracy, eliminating the top 10 reasons drawings are objected by the USPTO. More details on this to come about this and other tools under work.

We also have some ambitious new plans to expand into Europe and other parts of the US. Stay tuned for more announcements soon!

ABOUT LEGAL ADVANTAGE: Legal Advantage’s mission is “To help Inventors the World Over Protect Their Ideas and Realize Their Dreams.” For nine years Legal Advantage has assisted intellectual property attorneys, patent agents, and individual inventors in fulfilling this mission. Legal Advantage is a leader in Prior Art Searches (patentability, freedom to operate (FTO), clearance, validity, invalidity, infringement and landscape analysis), Patent Illustration (Patent Drawing) and Patent Design Services, document review, technical translations (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and over 20 other languages), patent trial graphics, and Legal research. The real benefits derived from these services include reduced costs, faster project completion, and a higher quality end-product deliverable.

Founded by seasoned intellectual property attorneys and litigators, Legal Advantage combines unparalleled dependability, accuracy, and client service - resulting in a stellar client retention rate that is among the highest in the industry.

Legal Advantage is headquartered in the Washington DC suburb of Bethesda, MD and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Hyderabad, Ottawa, and Toronto.

For more information please visit http://legaladvantage.net

created on 02/24/2010| 0| 0