Health insurance helps lessen the costs of medical expenses in the event of an illness or accident and for preventive medicine such as routine medical tests, checkups and screening tests. Health Insurance Basics Health insurance policies are full of terms ...

Trademark infringement involves the unauthorized use of someone’s trademark or service mark on or in connection with goods and/or services in a manner that is likely to cause confusion, deception, or mistake about the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or approval of ...

Because a trademark provides a business owner with a limited monopoly over the use of a protected mark, a trademark search is one of the most important initial steps when choosing a new business name, brand name or logo.  Trademark ...

Levels of Distinctiveness To be eligible for federal trademark registration, a mark must have a certain level of distinctiveness. The degree of distinctiveness runs along a continuum, generally categorized into one of five groups.  The first level includes generic terms, which are ...

Overview of Trademark Law Trademark law features a wide array of terms, such as trademark application, registration, prosecution and infringement, common law trademark and trademark examiner. Each of these terms holds a distinct meaning in the practice of trademark law ...

Overview A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, sound or color used to identify the source of goods in the marketplace. Trademarks are most commonly associated with brand logos, such as the Nike “swoosh” or the Starbucks “mermaid.” The broadcast network NBC’s ...

The sole means of enforcing a patent is through litigation.  This module focuses on the procedure of patent litigation, various types of patent infringement, defenses to infringement and remedies. Initiating the Litigation Federal courts have exclusive subject matter jurisdiction[1] over patent infringement litigation.  All ...

Ownership of a patent provides the right to exclude others from making, using, selling or importing the patented invention.[1]  Prior to the passage of the America Invents Act in 2011, the ownership initially vested in the named inventor or inventors.[2]  ...

Even after a patent is issued, a number of USPTO (which we’ll refer to sometimes as the Patent Office) proceedings can impact the enforceability and scope of the patent. Let’s say, for example, that Google just obtained a patent on ...

The Patent Attorney or Agent The process by which an inventor obtains a patent -- from the initial patent application filing to the issuance of the patent -- is known as patent prosecution.  Although an inventor can prepare and prosecute a patent ...