Image courtesy Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com Last week at lunch, my colleague ordered an “Impossible Burger.” It took about two bites to understand why they called it “Impossible,” because this burger looked, tasted and went down like meat. It was, however, not meat. My colleague slid the dish over to me for a meat-eater’s opinion. I took a …
This past weekend, the New York Times reported that American diplomats suffered “sonic delusions” and possible brain damage during mysterious sonic attacks in 2016 in Havana, Cuba and Guangzhou, China. The “microwave weapon” attacks caused the medical evacuation of 21 American diplomats in 2017, as well as the expulsion by President Trump of Cuban diplomats …
Ever since this thing called the Internet erased our horizons, many of us have found ourselves conducting business far outside the United States. For many of our clients, filing a patent in the United States is not enough. They seek also to protect their invention overseas, where the rules are different. U.S. patents do not afford …
Trump’s proposed tariffs bode poorly for small business. When you work with startups, you get a ground-level view of economic trends in action. In the last few weeks we’ve been watching how the Trump administration’s new trade threats are affecting our clients. As you probably know, President Trump just announced tariffs of 25 percent on about …
Q. What do these innovations have in common? – The Space Suit – Step-On Garbage Cans – The Bra – Random Radio Frequency – Kevlar ® – AZT – The Mars Rover A. They were all invented by women. We learned this from the awesome book Patently Female: From AZT to TV Dinners, Stories of Women …
THE HEALTHY DIVIDE BETWEEN INNOVATORS AND MANAGERS Karen James is one of those software developers: focused, methodical, binary. She is also inventive. She can envision a solution to a problem via lines of code. In the early 90’s Karen wrote a software application that medical staff could use to keep track of patients and manage …
Pharma Company Accused of Using Legal Tricks to Squash Generic Version Last October, we wrote about the tactics used by pharma company AbbVie to artificially extend its patents on its billion-dollar drug Humira. Now six groups are filing lawsuits against AbbVie for “anticompetitive conduct.” Humira is a rheumatoid-arthritis and gut-disorders drug that enjoys sales of …
The makers of the world’s biggest-selling drug cheat competitors and consumers as they extend their exclusive right to sell Humira. Humira is a rheumatoid-arthritis and gut-disorders drug that enjoys sales of around $18 billion a year. Last Tuesday, one of its patents was set to expire. When a drug’s patent expires, generic manufacturers are free …
The US Patent and Trademark Office gives inventors a sort of patenting grace period in the form of a provisional patent. Companies and inventors who think they can exploit this can end up burned. Protecting an innovation with a patent is an enduring American tradition dating back to the time of Thomas Jefferson. The patent …
Not all patents are created equal. If you browsed through the eight-million-plus patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) since 1836, you would find a surprising number of inventions that would not stand against infringement. Some patents are considered stronger than others. The difference lies not just in the usefulness of …