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Jo Dale Carothers is a shareholder and chair of Weintraub Tobin’s Intellectual Property group. She is an intellectual property litigator and registered patent attorney, who advises clients on a wide range of issues related to patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and copyrights. Her practice emphasizes intellectual property litigation, licensing, prosecution, contract disputes, and issues related to proceedings before the USPTO.

On December 1, 2016, amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”) and Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure (FRAP) took effect.  While at first glance, the changes may not seem dramatic, but changes such as shortening the time to respond and cutting word counts for briefs have a direct impact on our practices.  For

The America Invents Act provided several procedures for challenging the validity of patent claims, including inter partes review (“IPR”), post-grant review (“PGR”) and covered business method patent challenges (“CBM”).  An IPR, PGR, or CBM challenge begins with a petition filed by the challenging party that identifies each claim challenged and the grounds for each challenge.  

Jo-Dale-Carothers-015_webIt sounds like a silly question, doesn’t it?  After all, self-driving cars represent innovative progress in technology, and patents are intended “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”  U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause

When fashion fuses with high tech, we see our friends show up with trendy wearables, such as smart watches, fitness bands, and even high-tech, designer purses.  But, trendiness aside, wearables raise numerous questions for designers, manufacturers and consumers relating to intellectual property, data privacy and data security.  For example, how does a company protect the