December 2008: Learning to Protect Your Intellectual Property

At Robert Plotkin, P.C. we believe that the more our clients understand about intellectual property law, the better equipped they are to make successful long-term business decisions to protect their valuable intellectual property. That is why we offer a variety of educational seminars tailored to our clients' needs.

Many inventors and high-tech companies do not realize that by failing to take adequate precautions they can lose the ability to obtain patent protections for their inventions long before they ever file a patent application. Our introductory seminar, "Top Ten Patent Pitfalls: How to Avoid Forfeiting Your Patent Rights," is designed to educate you about how to avoid forfeiting your patent rights, even if you are not yet ready to begin the process of seeking a patent itself. This seminar outlines the ten most common ways in which people forfeit or weaken their patent rights, and how to avoid such pitfalls.

Although we recommend this seminar for everyone who has come up with a potentially patentable idea, it is critically important for first-time inventors and startup companies who are new to the patent process to attend. Attorney Robert Plotkin delivered this seminar to general practice attorneys through the Boston Bar Association and Practising Law Institute, and received such positive feedback that he and then tailored it to suit the needs of his firm's clients.

For established companies and startups with a larger and faster-growing technology portfolio, we offer a seminar entitled, "Navigating the Patent Maze: Protecting Your Business with Patents." This seminar includes all of the content of the “Top Ten Pitfalls” seminar, plus:

• How to document your inventions early to provide proof of the date of invention.
• How to determine which technologies to bring to the attention of your patent lawyer, and how to provide that information most effectively.
• Differences between and tradeoffs among using patent, copyright, trade secret, and trademark protection.
• How to identify who to name as inventors on a patent application.
• How to comply with the U.S. Patent Office’s “duty of disclosure” requirement.
• Overview of the contents of a patent application, and how to review a draft of a patent application.
• How to use email and other written communication in ways that won’t come back to haunt you.
• Overview of the patent process, from conception of the invention to enforcement of the patent.
• Typical time frames and budgets associated with obtaining patent protection in the U.S. and internationally.

We can provide these and other seminars either at our office, in-house at your business location, or via remote access. Attorney Plotkin is an experienced educator, author, and speaker who can make intellectual property protection both understandable and enjoyable to any audience. Please contact us if you would like to take advantage of one of the seminars listed above or if you would like us to customize a seminar for your business.