Related Patent News

IBM Maintains Patent Lead, Moves To Increase Patent Quality

According to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), IBM earned 2,941 patents last year, more than any other company. This is 13th consecutive year IBM has led the nation's patent production. Also, the company announced that is working with the USPTO, Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), members of the open source software community and academia to improve patent quality.

That initiative has three elements:

• Open Patent Review - In conjunction with the USPTO, this program will encourage various communities to review pending patent applications and provide feedback to the patent office on existing “prior art” that may not have been discovered by the applicant or examiner.
• Open Source Software as Prior Art - This project will establish open source software - with its billions of lines of publicly available computer source code contributed by thousands of programmers - as potential prior art against patent applications.
• Patent Quality Index - This

  Call Our Toll Free: (888) 275-2757 or Contact Us Online For a No-Obligation Consultation

  Bookmark:           
  Permalink:  http://S-0.ORG/tW1tZwr

  
  

  Did You Know?

  There is a time limit on patent protection. For applications filed on or after June 8, 1995, utility and plant patents are granted for a term which begins with the date of the grant and usually ends 20 years from the date you first applied for the patent subject to the payment of appropriate maintenance fees. Design patents last 14 years from the date you are granted the patent. Note: Patents in force on June 8 and patents issued thereafter on applications filed prior to June 8, 1995 automatically have a term that is the greater of the twenty year term discussed above or seventeen years from the patent grant.

  Contact our Patent Professionals to ensure you complete the patent filing process correctly or for violation of your patent rights.