Category: Patents and Trademarks

What Do IP Attorneys Do and When Do You Need One?

Ideas, creative inventions and processes, and trademarks are what help give you an edge over your competition, and it is your intellectual property (IP) attorney’s job to ensure these assets continue to provide you benefits and advantages for years to come. Your IP attorney’s mission is simple: to help you take advantage of intellectual property laws in the United States and wherever else your business conducts commercial activity so that your products or services are distinguished from...

What are the Benefits of Patent Pending Status?

Written by JGPC Business Law.

It is well-known that patents can provide useful protection to a California business’s ideas and inventions. Even if you or another business owner are not completely clear on what specific protections and remedies are available to you as the holder of a patent, you generally know that a patent protects you from competitors or others who attempt to steal your ideas or inventions for their own gain. Less known, however, is whether “patent pending” status holds any benefit to a business owner in...

JGPC Law - Alameda County Business and Corporate Mediation Attorneys

Software Patents and Alice in the Looking Glass

Written by JGPC Business Law.

Author: Gerald R. Prettyman, J.D., LL.M. The public tends to believe the purpose of the Patent Office is to issue patents. The facts paint a different conclusion. Typically, very few patent applications get approved for a patent on first examination. Saying 1 in 10,000 would not be far wrong. Most patent applications achieve allowance (approval for a patent) through the talents of a patent attorney. Overall, the final average of typically above 50%. Then there is software. Until 1981, the...

Is That a Patent, Trademark or Copyright?

Written by JGPC Business Law.

Gerald R. Prettyman, J.D., LL.M. If you wouldn’t know a patent if one bit you[1], you are not alone. Most of the public doesn’t know the difference, and there are lawyers who are uncertain of the differences. Today, though, you are lucky enough to have this article in front of you to learn the difference. Bear in mind, however, this is just an overview. If you want to know more, refer to the footnotes. Patents First – a patent provides a patent owner with the exclusive right to exclude...

Patent Attorneys Protect Your Company’s Investments

Written by JGPC Business Law.

When you acquire a new headquarters for your business or a valuable, tangible asset to help your company grow, you naturally (and wisely) take steps to protect that asset or property with insurance and security. Many business owners, though, fail to take similar measures to protect their intangible assets. Ideas, songs, slogans, and trademarks may not seem like “assets” in the traditional sense of the word, but for many companies, these items, their intellectual property, out value their...

How to Register and Protect Your Trademarks

Written by JGPC Business Law.

Registration is Essential to Protecting your Good Name and Reputation Protecting your business’s intellectual property is a task best handled by a knowledgeable and experienced California trademark law firm. A trademark (sometimes referred to as a service mark) includes any word, sign, symbol, or device that is used by one business to distinguish its goods and/or services from another business. Registering your trademark is essential to protecting your company’s good name and reputation....