Utah Patents Legal Questions

Your question is hard to follow. You mention a name was given to a product, but that the product was never sold under that name. If the product/'name were never used in commerce, and the name was never registered with the US Patent and Trademark office, you have no rights to that name. There would be no copyright for a name, without more. Then you say a magazine had an article mentioned the name in some related way. Even if you had a trademark, merely mentioning the trademarked name in an article should not infringe that mark.... Read More

First, a patent is not in the public domain unless it has expired. Second, you are correct. The right conferred by a patent grant is, in the language of the federal statute (35 U.S.C. ?101) and of the grant itself, ?the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention in the United States or importing the invention into the United States.... Read More

Patents are NOT in the public domain until they expire - typically now 20 years from the filing date - if all maintenance fees are paid. It is an act of infringement to make, use, sell, or offer for sale, a patented invention - unless you have permission (i.e., a license) from the owner. The fact that you may want to license a patent likely means that you are (or could be) in contact with the owner - so ask for a "test drive" if you want to be completely safe from any charge of infringement. You can ask that it be done "free of charge" - but that decision is the owner's to make.... Read More

A decent confidentiality agreement will keep the associated disclosure from being a "public disclosure" and therefore giving up your international rights and starting the 1 year deadline to lose your rights in the US. As to how legally binding any particular agreement is and how well it can keep someone from stealing your idea, that comes down to the specific terms of the agreement and who is involved. Generally, you will need to consult with an attorney to get an idea about how much a particular agreement protects you.... Read More

Copyright only protects a specific expression of an idea so you can create a social network as long as it doesn't copy the look and function of any other platform. You will also be subject to the issues that many of these companies are facing right now, such as whether or not to allow government access to information your users post on your site and to what extent you are liable if someone posts something illegal on it.... Read More

Based on these facts, I would say you need help from a patent attorney. What to do depends on what the idea and/or software are worth, and who knows about themt. If the idea is patentable you could quickly file a patent application of your own. Even if the employer files first, you can likely file your own application and oppose his. You might even sue the employer in small claims court. If the software/invention are valuable, it is possible that an attorney might accept some or all compensation on a contingency basis. Obviously, if you do any of these things, regardless of the your outcome with respect to your idea/software, your supervisor will eventually find out and almost certainly will not like it very much. So you may loose your job. On the other hand, if the employer you work for is a large or medium sized entity, they might see things your way if the facts are presented in a strategic manner (a good attorney can help with this aspect as well). Legally speaking, the invention (if any) should belong to you. U.S. patent priority is now on a first to file basis, but first to file means the first *inventor* to file (e.g. one who copies an invention is not entitled to priority). If you have assigned your patent rights to the employer, that assignment usually will not cover unrelated work and inventions conceived/done on your own time away from the workplace (but deciding the outcome can depend on specific details). I could continue, but the gist of all this is that you should first assess (alone or with an attorney who has hands on technology experience) the likely value of the idea/software, and discuss your specifics (the employer, any explicit records or evidence, etc.) with an attorney before deciding on an appropriate course of action. Many attorneys will be agreeable to an initial personal or telephonic discussion in confidence, as a courtesy without charge (you may contact me if you wish). This is one way to get a better handle on your alternatives. One last thing- please use this experience as a lesson that it is important (and much cheaper) to have an attorney help you at the onset of a relationship or endeavor, and that your agreements (contracts)/inventions should be written and given a prior review by your attorney (think analogy to a medical checkup).... Read More

The statement of your question really begs two different questions: The first question is whether or not your complex invention patentable? And second, if you include "a patented simple product" in your complex invention, will you be infringing the patent rights of the owner of the "patented simple product"? As to the first question, the answer is a simple formula, but it's application may be difficult if not impossible to predict. Your invention is patentable if it is a new, useful, and non-obvious process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter. Your statement of the facts tells us nothing about your invention other than it includes or uses "a patent simple product". By definition your inclusion of the patented product adds nothing "new" because the patented product came first. Perhaps there is some other feature of your complex invention that is "new, useful, and non-obvious". So, you need to conduct a patentability or "novelty" search based on an accurate description of your complex invention to determine whether or not it is patentable and even then, you can never be certain. For example, a novelty search cannot discover a prior pending patent application filed with a "nonpublication request" for your exact invention filed by another inventor here in the US, at least until it issues. As to the second question, if you do not have a license to the "patented simple product", either directly from the owner, or by having purchased it from the owner giving you such a right, you may be liable for patent infringement by including a "patented simple product" in your complex invention. Again, there is not enough information in your statement of the facts to render an opinion one way or the other. The patent owner's rights are detailed in the patent document itself, namely the claims. Accordingly, you should consult patent counsel to further explore these and other issues to best achieve your business objectives and to avoid legal liability for patent infringement.... Read More

1. Copyright and patent rights protect different things and the knowledge you seek (about infringement) is obtained differently. in each case. 2. As for copyrights, if you haven't copied anything you will not infringe. If you do copy something, it gets a lot more complicated and you should consult an attorney. 3. Regarding copyright, you could be sued even if you haven't copied or done anything wrong. If this happens you should hire an attorney to help you- a skilled attorney should be able to help you win the dispute and may be able to recover your legal costs and damages. 4. Patents protect useful things and methods- in the US, the first party to file a patent application or publish a patentable idea may now obtain a patent that can exclude others from using that which is claimed. To have a very high level of confidence that no patent covers what you are doing, you need to find an an *expired* patent or publication, or other documented public knowledge showing exactly the same thing (e.g. that a patent covering the thing would be invalid). 5. If you don't have any of the above in hand, then you can search through patents and patent applications. This can be difficult and it is easy to miss things. For this reason, you should find a highly skilled technical patent attorney who has significant hands on experience with patent disputes/litigation to help. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, there is always a possibility that something was overlooked- the amount of uncertainty will depend on the skill and scope of the the search. 6. As to your second question: you could search for patent applications and patents in the names of company employees and/or assigned to the company- but this assumes that the idea is protected by patents rather than a copyright or trademark. Besides searching, you could always ask them ;-)).... but doing that has its own drawbacks and/or risks. 7. "Similarity" that you reference can boil down to a legal question... the criteria, and what is protected, are different when it comes to copyright vs. patent protection, and legal knowledge, technical understanding, and experience are generally necessary to tease these things apart. 8. You can find a number of books with titles such as "... Read More

Copyright protects an original work established in some sort of a permanent medium, such as a book, computer software, art, music, a play, etc. A trademark is a word or words, symbol, color, sign, sound, etc. that indicates the source of goods or services. Each logo must be unique and specific to the company. So you cannot copy parts of two other logos. However, you can create your own logo from common elements such a human figure, a star, a cube, etc., plus any word or combination of words allowed by the USPTO.... Read More

The short answer, is that if you don't have the rights to use the music, then it is usually a violation of someone's rights for you to use it. When you buy it off iTunes, you are only getting limited rights defined by your agreement with iTunes. Anything outside the bounds of that agreement is probably not authorized and you can possibly get into trouble for it. From your question, it sounds like this comes up for you in a lot of situations. You might want to go research the law so you can get a good foundation on how it all works. Search the internet for "fair use" and "copyright rights" and that should get you a good start.... Read More

Section 1402.06 below, from the TMEP (Trademark Manual of Examination Procedure) available online apparently answers your question(s). Regards, dan 1402.06 Amendments Permitted to Clarify or Limit Identification Trademark Rule 2.71(a), 37 C.F.R. 2.71(a), restricts amendments to the identification of goods or services as follows, "The applicant may amend the application to clarify or limit, but not to broaden, the identification of goods and/or services." This rule applies to all applications. Section 7(c) of the Trademark Act, 15 U.S.C. 1057(c), provides that filing an application for registration on the Principal Register establishes constructive use and nationwide priority contingent on issuance of the registration (see TMEP 201.02). Therefore, the identification of goods and services in an application defines the scope of those rights established by the filing of an application for the Principal Register.... Read More

If your employer does not have an agreement with you providing that your employer has ownership rights in anything that you create or invent, and if you do not use your employer's property or resources to create your website, and if your website does not contain anything that belongs to your employer, then your employer probably will not have a valid basis for claiming ownership in your website.... Read More

There are lots of ways you an violate someone's rights when copying their product. You need to get an attorney to review the relevant products, do some research and then let you know what the opinion would look like if you had them write one. Plan on spending about $250 - $800 for that initial research.... Read More

That is called "white-labeling" and it happens quite a bit. Some generic brands at the grocery store are white-labeled brand name product. Generally it is done by agreement with the original source, but it doesn't have to be done with their permission. Without more, I think it would be hard for you to prove you have been damaged, since he paid for your product and you can resell product that you buy. Software products that are not sold but licensed instead can stop that from happening, but if you are selling a physical good, then you should probably just be satisfied that he is paying you for product.... Read More