Archive for the ‘From the Expert’s Quill’ Category

One of the popular misconceptions that I run into when I train people, is the belief that the assignment from a parent application does not need to be filed against its child continuation or divisional applications.The problem here is that there is a disconnect between the words “owner” and “title.” The word “owner” refers to a legal right of possession and the word “title” refers to the instrument that constitutes the evidence of such legal right, which is located in the ownership registry of the applicable jurisdiction in which the patent is registered.

The practice of Intellectual property law prosecution serves two purposes: [1] investigating and processing patent, trademark or copyright claims so as to establish or expand a client’s ownership rights to those claim(s), and [2] protecting clients from theft or infringement of the patent, trademark or copyright claims they already own. Structured to accommodate the world’s creative minds and technical geniuses, IP is the most comprehensive and complicated form of law practice in existence. Its success is based on deadlines and precision, the levels of which can directly affect businesses and the livelihoods they sustain… even entire economies.

EPO: European Patent Office
EPC: European Patent Convention
EU: European Union
Annuity: Annual fee required by many foreign patent offices to be paid to keep the patent application or grant pending.
Maintenance fee: Fee paid to the USPTO to keep a granted patent alive. The fee is due by the 4th, 8th and 12th anniversary of the issue date.
Renewal: Use this term when you are speaking about both foreign annuities and US maintenance fees.

When a patent application is filed under the EPC, the application is referred to as an EP application.