Intellectual Property
At Fortis LLP, our attorneys and associated counsel are registered with The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and have represented clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies, start-up companies and solo inventors. Our attorneys strive to provide clients with first rate service at competitive rates. In today’s high speed information based society, ideas and products can be created and reproduced swiftly and easily. It is more important now to protect inventions, company brands, and creative works than ever.
The Intellectual Property attorneys at to Fortis LLP can assist clients in the following areas:
- Patent drafting and prosecution
- Patent strategy and infringement opinion
- Patent licensing
- Internet legal issues
- Trade secrets, unfair business and trade practices
- Trademark searches and applications
- Copyright applications
ABOUT THE USPTO
The USPTO was established by Congress as an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce to administer law relating to the granting of patents and the registration of trademarks. The principal public policy is to encourage the sharing of innovative ideas to benefit the public in return for the inventor receiving the exclusive right to make, market a trademark and sell an invention for the term of a patent.
PATENTS
A patent for an invention is a grant of a property right to an inventor of a unique commercial product for the duration of 20 years. Presently, three types of patents exist: Utility Patent, Design Patent and Plant Patent.
Utility patents protect a variety of new technologies and are granted to anyone who invents any new and useful articles of manufacture, apparatuses, electronic circuitry, chemical compounds, mechanical devices, chemical or manufacturing processes, software inventions, business methods, or any new and useful improvement.
Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents an original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture.
Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents, discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant.
TRADEMARKS
A trademark or a servicemark is a word, name or symbol that is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods or services and to distinguish them from the goods or services of other sources. Trademark rights registered by the USPTO maybe used to prevent other sources from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making or selling the same goods or services under a different mark.
COPYRIGHTS
Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office. A copyright protects the form of expression but not protect the subject matter of the writing. Copyright is usually granted to the authors of original work in literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and other published and unpublished intellectual works.
