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On September 15, the Department of Justice announced that a Latvian national, Viktors Suhorukovs, had been sentenced to four years in federal prison and ordered to pay over $4.5 million in restitution after pleading guilty to a scheme to defraud holders of United States trademark registrations. Evidence showed that Mr. Suhorukovs operated a limited liability company titled “Patent and Trademark Office, LLC” — a name that is misleadingly similar to the actual United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) — for the purpose of sending sham trademark registration renewal notices to registrants. Once the victim signed and returned the renewal notice, Mr. Suhorukovs sent them an invoice for the renewal service and charged an inflated fee for trademark renewal. The victims would then send their “renewal fees” to Mr. Suhorukovs, thinking they were dealing with the USPTO. In total, almost 3,000 victims were identified. 

Suppose that you have come up with a great idea for a new invention that, to your knowledge, is not currently sold in the market. Since you’ve never seen this kind of invention before, you likely assume that you will easily be able to patent it. However, the requirements of patentability are not quite so simple. Generally, inventions must be new, useful, and non-obvious in order to be patentable. While the “utility” element of patentability is easily met in most cases, the novelty and non-obviousness requirements are a bit more complex. Below, an Alabama patent attorney provides a high-level overview of what a patent applicant must show to obtain a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). 

Being sued for patent infringement can be a frightening process. Patent litigation can take a significant toll on a business and result in thousands or even millions of dollars in damages. Even if you did the most diligent patent searching and determined that your product does not infringe anyone else’s patent, you still may have missed something, or perhaps your product infringes only a portion of someone else’s patent. If you are sued for patent infringement, you need to be prepared to defend yourself from the allegations using one or more defenses to patent infringement. An Alabama patent litigation attorney goes over the major ones below. 

Patent rights are negative rights. Rather than entitling the holder to use the technology claimed in a patent, the patent entitles the holder to exclude others from making, using, selling, or otherwise “practicing” the claimed invention — even if the holder is not actually using the patent. While this may seem strange at first glance, the Intellectual Property Clause of the Constitution grants to authors and inventors “the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” One who makes, uses, or sells a patent invention infringes the holder’s patent and is liable to the patent holder for damages. But there are several distinct types of patent infringement, as an Alabama IP litigation lawyer explains. 

Over the last few years, lawsuits have come against celebrities like Nicki Minaj, Khloé Kardashian, Ariana Grande, and Jennifer Lopez for posting photographs taken by paparazzi onto their social media accounts without permission or license to repost the photos. Top model Gigi Hadid follows as she is recently the center of attention in a copyright infringement case after being sued by Xclsuive-Lee, Inc. for reposting a photograph of herself onto her Instagram account @gigihadid in October of 2018.