The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the federal agency responsible for granting U.S. patents and registering U.S. trademarks. The USPTO is the sole entity capable of granting patents and trademarks legally recognized in...
intellectual property
usefulness
Usefulness (officially referred to as utility) is the second of five requirements for patentability. Usefulness simply requires that the invention be “useful” for almost anything now. Applicants often can easily meet this goal by writing some...
USPTO
The US Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO) is a federal agency that grants patents for the protection of inventions and registers trademarks for products and services.
The USPTO is headed by the Under Secretary of Commerce...
utility patent
A utility patent protects the way an article is used and works per 35 U.S.C. § 101. To obtain a utility patent, an inventor must file an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) setting forth certain property...
Vessel Hull Design Protection Act
Title V of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act, provides sui generis protection for an “original design of a useful article” (where “useful article” is limited to boat hulls). It was intended to replace the...
WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act
Title I of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the “WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act of 1998” added Chapter 12, Copyright Protection and Management Systems, to the Copyright Act.
At the time of the DMCA...
work for hire
A work for hire, or work made for hire, refers to works whose ownership belongs to a third party rather than the creator. Under general copyright principals, a copyright becomes the property of the author who created the work. However, work...
work made for hire
When a work is deemed to be "made for hire," the employer (and not necessarily the employee-creator of the work) is deemed to be the author and therefore owns all rights associated with the work under copyright law.
The...