Utah Patents Legal Questions

Under US law, "whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor". 35 U.S.C. 101. So, in your instance, you would be protecting a novel and nonobvious process or method. More particularly, you want to protect the key process steps that you use on your website. As you must know, there are virtually no limits on the various particular lines of code (html or otherwise) that could be assembled to implement the fundamental algorithm of your process. So, claiming such an algorithm at the code level leaves others limitless opportunities to design around and still perform the algorithm. Accordingly, you should claim your process at the highest level of abstraction that remains novel and nonobvious. It is not necessary to include actual software code in a patent application. But, you must disclose enough about how you mechanized your solution that one of ordinary skill in the software art could practice the invention without excessive experimentation. Copyright is the vehicle for protecting your particular coded implementation of the website. As always, you should consult a patent attorney that is familiar with software patenting to properly advise you of your best strategies to protect your invention, whether through patent or copyright law.... Read More

Your question is missing a ton of necessary information and to answer it properly someone will need to know those details and also probably review your patent. Some of that information will be information that you do not want posted publicly on the internet. You should consult with a patent attorney directly.... Read More

There are lots of patents on modified clothing, including modified medical purpose clothing. It will come down to your specific modifications and how they compare to past patents/publications. It is worth talking with a patent attorney or two to see if they think you should do a basic patent screening search. If the search looks good, you may have a chance to get your own patent.... Read More

The PCT process is supposed to be easy. But, in practice it is very difficult to get right and failure to do it right can invalidate the whole thing. The software tool they provide is not intuitive and uses language that is very unfamiliar. There are a lot of rules that you need to be aware of when filling it out to do it right.... Read More

You can protect your art, story and the brand that they will be sold/distributed under. Plan on spending between about $400 - $800 to prepare and file a copyright application and between about $800 - $2500 to prepare and file a trademark application. You can try to do them yourself for much cheaper, but your chances of success are not great.... Read More

You can expect to pay between about $400 - $2500 for a patent search and between about $4500 - $12,500 for a typical patent application. I would recommend that you talk with a few patent attorneys so that you can discuss important aspects of your technology and plans with attorney-client privilege protecting you.... Read More

As it is often the case, the answer to your question is, "maybe". Assuming your mark is identical to the Australian mark even though for similar goods, you may be able to obtain a trademark registration in the US for the mark. As a general rule trademark rights are limited geographically. That is to say that an Australian trademark registration will not in and of itself be enforceable in the US. The obstacles you may run into are that if the Australian's have sold their product with the mark in the US, they may have common-law rights that precede you. If so, the Australian's have the right to challenge your trademark application in an Opposition proceeding, or if after you register, in a Cancellation proceeding. As you may know, trademark rights arise from earliest continuous use of the mark. The Australian's are the senior user under these facts.Additionally, there may be other users of similar marks that you are not aware of. Finally, it is important to know the strength of your candidate trademark. If it is generic or merely descriptive, it cannot be registered or enforced as a trademark. Whereas, if the candidate mark is fanciful or arbitrary it is a strong mark that can be registered and enforced. Accordingly, you should seek the advice of trademark counsel based on a complete understanding of your facts, namely the marks and goods associated with them, and have a trademark availability search performed to better advise you on whether to pursue that mark at all. It may be the case that you should select some other mark to avoid legal problems down the road with your candidate mark. It can be costly to unwind an advertising campaign based on a mark that infringes another's mark.... Read More

You can apply for a patent before launching your website and many people do so they can be first to the patent office and keep their international rights open. You may put important rights at risk if you launch the website before filing your patent application. A patent application is how you will likely protect the system. It usually takes about 3 - 7 years to get a patent allowed after you file it. You do not wait for the allowance before you launch your website, though. Once the application is filed, you can launch the website.... Read More