Blockchain is a decentralized database, often referred to as a distributed ledger where transactions are confirmed and recorded. The system is sturdy and secure, as information cannot be altered once it is entered into the ledger. By checking the blockchain ...

Tagged with: IP Frontiers Shanna Sanders

The United States Copyright Act contains one of the great contradictions in American jurisprudence. Copyright automatically inheres in a work at the moment the work is created. In other words, an author of any work of art has copyright rights ...

Tagged with: IP Frontiers Thomas L. Sica

Each new startup begins with an idea — but what is the best way to protect that idea? For many mechanical and medical device startups, that idea may be protected using patents. But where do you start? For most startups, ...

Tagged with: IP Frontiers Jacquelyn Graff

About five months have gone by since my last update on the state of patentable subject matter after the 2014 Alice Supreme Court decision and its progeny. A number of important developments have taken place during this time, mostly positive ...

Tagged with: IP Frontiers Wayne F. Reinke

When we browse a website containing an image, that image may be retrieved from a third party, rather than from the author of the website. Sometimes, unbeknownst to the website author, the linked image infringes someone else’s copyright in that ...

Tagged with: IP Frontiers Kristian E. Ziegler

What do barbeque sauce, wine and law firms have in common? Each frequently finds themselves at the center of legal disputes over the right to use and/or register one’s family name (or “surname”) as a trademark.[1] Indeed, our region is ...

Tagged with: Alana M. Fuierer IP Frontiers

The timing and sufficiency of an assignment document can become critical for protecting the rights of the assignee. These rights include the assignee’s right to sue for infringement, ownership right and right to claim priority. Right to sue for infringement ...

Tagged with: IP Frontiers Stephen P. Scuderi

35 U.S.C. §101 states that “Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this ...

Tagged with: IP Frontiers Wayne F. Reinke

Last month, David Slater and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) finally settled their two-year legal battle over the intellectual property rights of a rare Indonesian crested macaque monkey named Naruto, who took pictures of himself in ...

Tagged with: IP Frontiers Kristian E. Ziegler

The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, whose Akwesasne territory straddles the U.S.-Canadian border in Franklin County, New York, and the provincial boarder between Ontario and Quebec, recently parlayed its sovereign immunity into several valuable pharmaceutical patents and a significant revenue stream. ...

Tagged with: IP Frontiers Kristian E. Ziegler

The surge of user-generated e-commerce and social media platforms has provided individuals—regardless of location, experience or financial status—the power to become a commercial artist, author, designer, musician or photographer. For emerging entrepreneurs, traditional barriers to entry have been removed by ...

Tagged with: Alana Fuierer IP Frontiers Shanna Sanders

A common feeling shared by what I would venture to guess is most readers of this article is a special frustration with printer manufacturers. Specifically, it’s the negative feeling we experience when it comes time to replenish the ink or ...

Tagged with: IP Frontiers Matt Hulihan