America Invents Act allows companies to mark patents with patent number by referring to a web address. Also, false patent marking claims can only be brought by the government or someone with a competitive injury.

This blog post has been updated due to the America Invents Act enacted September 16, 2011.  See Virtual patent marking and false patent marking post. . Patent false marking has become an increasingly important issue for patentees.  The typical false marking situation begins with a product manufacturer falsely marking its “own” product with an expired patent [...]

This blog post has been updated due to the America Invents Act enacted September 16, 2011.  See Virtual patent marking and false patent marking post. The benefit of marking a product with a patent number is that damages accrue upon infringement and not upon actual notice of the patent.  However, if the product is incorrectly marked [...]