IPR Mid-2 assignment quetions with answers.

1.Define patent?write about conditions to satisfy patent law?

 patent:

A government authority or licence conferring a right or title for a set period, especially the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention

Conditions:

The patent laws usually require that, for an invention to be patentable, it must be:

• Patentable subject matter, i.e., a kind of subject-matter eligible for patent protection
• Novel (i.e. at least some aspect of it must be new)
• Non-obvious (in United States patent law) or involve an inventive step (in European patent law)
• Useful (in U.S. patent law) or be susceptible of industrial application (in European patent law^[1])

Usually the term "patentability" only refers to "substantive" conditions, and does not refer to formal conditions such as the "sufficiency of disclosure", the "unity of invention" or the "best mode requirement".

Judging patentability is one aspect of the official examination of a patent application performed by a patent examiner and may be tested in post-grant patent litigation.

Prior to filing a patent application, inventors sometimes obtain a patentability opinion from a patent agent or patent attorney regarding whether an invention satisfies the substantive conditions of patentability.

2.define Trade secret?physical protection to trade secrets?

A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, commercial method, or compilation of information which is not generally known or reasonably ascertainable by others, and by which a business can obtain an economic advantage over competitors or customers.^[1] In some jurisdictions, such secrets are referred to as "confidential information", but are generally not referred to as "classified information" in the United States, since that refers to government secrets protected by a different set of laws and practices.

1. Identify your company’s valuable trade secrets.

2. Develop a trade secret protection policy for your company and put it in writing. 

3. Educate your employees about your Trade Secret Protection Policy and monitor their compliance. 

4. Restrict trade secret access to employees with a legitimate, business-related, need to know.

5. Mark documents containing your company’s trade secrets. 

3.New devolopments in trademark law?

• The first lawsuit brought under ACPA was filed by actor Brad Pitt against two domainname

holders. Mr. Pitt was successful.

• J. Crew International Inc. won a decision under the UDRP after an individual registered

“crew.com” and attempted to sell it to J. Crew. Other successful complainants

include NASDAQ and Madonna.

• A federal court has held that an Internet domain name registrar cannot be sued for

civil rights violations for refusing to register domain names that included obscene

terms.

• By late 2000, Internet users had registered more than 31 million domain names.

• The makers of the movie Spider Man were allowed to superimpose digital images on

real-life billboards. The makers altered Times Square billboards by superimposing ads

from companies such as Cingular Wireless over the real ads for Samsung and NBC. The

court ruled that the digital alterations were protected free speech.

• “Dot com” is the most popular domain suffix

4.write about international copyright law?

International Copyright

There is no such thing as an “international copyright” that will automatically protect an author’s writings throughout the world. Protection against unauthorized use in a particular country depends on the national laws of that country. However, most countries offer protection to foreign works under certain conditions that have been greatly simplified by international copyright treaties and conventions. There are two principal international copyright conventions, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Berne Convention) and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC).

The United States became a member of the Berne Convention on March 1, 1989. It has been a member of the UCC since September 16, 1955. Generally, the works of an author who is a national or domiciliary of a country that is a member of these treaties or works first published in a member country or published within 30 days of first publication in a Berne Convention country can claim protection under the treaties. There are no formal requirements in the Berne Convention. Under the UCC, any formality in a national law can be satisfied by the use of a notice of copyright in the form and position specified in the UCC. A UCC notice should consist of the symbol © (C in a circle) accompanied by the year of first publication and the name of the copyright proprietor (example: © 2006 John Doe). This notice must be placed in such a manner and location as to give reasonable notice of the claim to copyright. Since the Berne Convention prohibits formal requirements that affect the “exercise and enjoyment” of the copyright, the United States changed its law on March 1, 1989, to make the use of a copyright notice optional. U.S. law, however, still provides certain advantages for use of a copyright notice; for example, the use of a copyright notice can defeat a defense of “innocent infringement.”

5.write about patent ownership?

. OWNERSHIP

Ownership of a patent gives the patent owner the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing into the United States the invention claimed in the patent. 35 U.S.C. 154(a)(1). Ownership of the patent does not furnish the owner with the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell, or import the claimed invention because there may be other legal considerations precluding same (e.g., existence of another patent owner with a dominant patent, failure to obtain FDA approval of the patented invention, an injunction by a court against making the product of the invention, or a national security related issue).

For applications filed on or after September 16, 2012, the original applicant is presumed to be the initial owner of an application for an original patent. See 37 CFR 3.73(a). For applications filed before September 16, 2012, the ownership of the patent (or the application for the patent) initially vests in the named inventors of the invention of the patent. See Beech Aircraft Corp. v. EDO Corp., 990 F.2d 1237, 1248, 26 USPQ2d 1572, 1582 (Fed. Cir. 1993). A patent or patent application is assignable by an instrument in writing, and the assignment of the patent, or patent application, transfers to the assignee(s) an alienable (transferable) ownership interest in the patent or application. 35 U.S.C. 261.