Easy Patent Guide

Atlanta patent lawyers are lawyers specialized in representing clients for obtaining patents and acting in all matters and procedures relating to patent law and practice in Atlanta, Georgia. They represent their clients before the Patent Office, part of United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Patent layers may provide patentability opinions as well as prepare, file, and prosecute patent applications for their clients. Atlanta patent lawyers take all patent cases concerning machines, manmade products, compositions of matter, and processing methods. They are members of the Georgia State Bar Association.

Choosing a career as a specialized patent attorney in the U.S. means being an attorney who has the required qualifications to represent people and corporations in obtaining patents. A patent attorney acts in all matters and procedures relating to patent law and practice. The career title carries different credentials and positions in various countries, so check for specifics needed.

In March 2006, there was renewed concern about the patent system, manifested not only in discussion of the NTP v. RIM (BlackBerry) case, which settled for $612.5 million but also on the fate of the use of injunctions in patent infringement cases, to be reviewed by the Supreme Court in eBay v. MercExchange. The Wall Street Journal wrote that U.S. patent law is “deterring research and penalizing innovation,” and that the patent system is “fast becoming a detriment to U.S. competitiveness, not to mention basic fairness.” The idea that patents are not central to innovation can also be found in the philosophy of some venture capitalists, who will directly tell you “patents are not why we are investing.”

Recently in Maine, I talked with a gentleman and we discussed at a coffee shop the issues concerning the Patent and Trademark Offices and the slow processing problems with registration of everything from a simple patent or concept patent to a Registered Trademark or Service Mark. Also this past week had an email conversation with a gentleman from NC in a small business regarding weak trademark and service mark case law in several states and at the Federal Level and how that affected him and the owner of a mark in Ohio. Also discussed the issues with an Aussie who now lives in BC Canada with regards to a cross border US Competitor using a name he intends to use and has already used in Canadian Commerce. First use laws and case laws are different that in Canada and the US. And certainly no trademark is worth a dollar in China. Some would disagree if you have the right attorney there in that country. I had mentioned these types of issues in a letter to the FTC and discussed the problems with patent law and not knowing, the patent books, which explain all this are over 400 plus pages now and when you are done reading them you may or may not know enough to get the job done.

Technology patents stifle innovation. You may have heard this, and the arguments surrounding it, since the first software patents were issued. Until now, however, the average individual in the United States has not noticed really noticed the reach that intellectual property law protection has in their everyday lives. After all, one does not miss innovation that has been crushed prior to the product’s shipment into the supply chain. The “wouldn’t it be nice if we had something like this” thought doesn’t normally result in a search for that item just to find that someone tried to develop it but was stopped either by being threatened with the high cost of patent infringement, threats of never ending lawsuits based on copyright or other claims, or even threats of federal legislation that will leave their product useless.

Google applied for a patent on their ranking algorithm as of 15 months ago on December 31, 2003 and that application was posted on March 31st at the US Patent Office. It got the discussion forums buzzing this weekend. Even though I had substantial work to do and was behind on a project, I couldn’t resist the temptation to read the very long 14,000 word, 45 page application and see what it could mean to the volatile world of search.

The recent patent application filed by Google details numerous items the search engine uses to rank web pages. The specific application is summarized as:

“A method for scoring a document, comprising: identifying a document; obtaining one or more types of history data associated with the document; and generating a score for the document based on the one or more types of history data.”

The patent application sheds significant light for those pursuing search engine optimization with Google. Patent applications can be difficult to understand, so following are highlights that you should consider for your SEO efforts.