Final Project

When putting together this final project I found Frank Natoli who's firm is based out of New York. He was able to help with most of my questions. I began to ask him about the self mailed patent and if it was a legitimate form of proof. He responded by saying no basically, patents can get pretty complicated and its more about "how" an invention gets protected not "what." "With three important exceptions, a copyright is owned by the person who created the work." Dear Rich, CopyRight& Trademark text, pg 198.

We then began to talk about infringing on another patent and how would I know. Frank said the only way you can find out for sure is to conduct an art patent search that carefully searches the disclosures and claims for prior art to see if anything in your invention has infringes. "An Infringement search is usually much narrower in scope than a patent ability search and is conducted for the purpose of deciding whether a particular invention will infringe an in-force patent" Dear Rich, CopyRight& Trademark text, pg 133.

I then wanted to know how much it would be to register a trademark. Frank said the trademark process starts with a call due diligence which is searches threw many federal and common laws. After your conflicts are filed through USPTO the your registration process starts, but the cost depends on what you have provided. Getting a large law firm to help can also get very costly. "Although the term typically refers to federally registered trademarks, technically, any trademark that is placed on the federal list of protected marks is considered registered." Dear Rich, CopyRight& Trademark text, pg 477.

 

Anytime dealing with the law in this way, I feel you should get help. Frank agreed by saying getting a professional to conduct a deep comprehensive clearance search in all 50 states. This felt would decrease my chances of dealing with an infringement lawsuit. "In trademark infringement lawsuits, the Lanham Act bars a court form awarding punitive damages" Dear Rich, CopyRight& Trademark text, pg 476.

 

I then wanted to know about designs and how they are protected. Frank said his experience with this can be misleading but he mostly deals with the intellectual property, but when dealing with this in his law office some clients had complaints. "Visual representations of an invention must be included in the patent application, these drawings should show all the features recited  in the claims. Dear Rich, CopyRight& Trademark text, pg 75.

 

At this point the interview had come to and end, so I am glad I got to chat with Frank and I learned allot.