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OC Patent Lawyer receives Rising Star and AV status

Posted On :June 14th, 2013 By James Yang

OC Patent Lawyer has received the highest rating by Martindale-Hubbel.  AV rated means that my peers have rated me at the highest level of Legal Ability and Ethical Standards.  To learn more about the rating system, click here.  To confirm the rating, click here. I have also been designed Rising Star by Super Lawyers operated [...]

Isolated DNA is not eligible for patent but synthetic DNA is

Posted On :June 13th, 2013 By James Yang

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its opinion on AMP v. Myriad on the issue of eligibility of patent protection for isolated DNA and synthetic DNA (i.e., cDNA).  I previously wrote about the Fed. Cir. opinion on this case.  Post title: Different structure and function required for patent eligibility.  At that time, a fractured Fed. [...]

Patent marking shows whether product is covered under a patent

Posted On :June 11th, 2013 By James Yang

In the world of patents, the stakes can be very high where awards can reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars and sometimes billions of dollars.  When a license is given, royalties are paid on products covered by the patents being licensed.  It might seem to be easy to determine whether royalty should be [...]

Domestic industry focuses on plan to adopt and develop technology

Posted On :June 3rd, 2013 By James Yang

Litigation at the International Trade Commission (ITC) of Washington, DC requires the patentee to have a domestic industry [in the U.S.] to block the importation of infringing products into the United States.  The ITC is a trade forum and not an intellectual property forum.  The ITC is concerned with protecting the U.S. economy from harm [...]

AFCP 2.0 Option after a final rejection

Posted On :May 21st, 2013 By James Yang

The original AFCP or After Final Consideration Pilot Program wasn’t successful because it didn’t move prosecution along toward making the Applicant realize that they don’t have an invention that will ultimately result in a patent leading them to drop the case or allow the examiner to understand the true beneficial nature of the invention leading [...]

Court still divided on software patents

Posted On :May 14th, 2013 By James Yang

CLS Bank v Alice (en banc Fed Cir. 2013).  This case was supposed to provide greater certainty as to what is eligible and what is not eligible for software patents.  Start ups which are the engine of the U.S. economy typically does not have money to spend on intellectual property rights that are speculative and [...]

Micro entities receive a 75% discount on patent fees

Posted On :May 9th, 2013 By James Yang

Over the past two years since enactment of the America Invents Act, the USPTO has generally been raising filing fees.  They wanted the fees to be more in line with the actual costs for the particular services.  Fee increases seem odd in that the Patent Office is a profitable organization within the U.S. government which [...]

Should I hire a patent agent instead of a patent attorney to save fees?

Posted On :May 1st, 2013 By James Yang

In an effort of full disclosure, I am a patent attorney.  There are two significant deficiencies in working with a patent agent. No attorney client privilege. Patent agents cannot give and do not have any experience in advising clients with other areas of intellectual property law.  Attorney client privilege During my consultations with clients, one [...]

Preserving the first to invent status of a pre-AIA filing in a post-AIA world

Posted On :April 23rd, 2013 By James Yang

What should you do?  You have a provisional patent application which was filed pre-AIA (i.e., before March 16, 2013). You want to file a non provisional patent application with additional subject matter and claim priority to the provisional patent application while still maintaining first to invent status of the subject matter you filed in your [...]

Gray market for copyrighted products no longer illegal

Posted On :April 4th, 2013 By James Yang

Gray market goods represent about a $40 billion dollar industry for information technology products alone. When combined with other types of products, the total industry dollar figure attributable to the gray market could go significantly up. The gray market includes only genuine products that flow out of the owner’s intended geographical region of distribution. The [...]