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by Audrey Millemann

In Net MoneyIN, Inc. v. Verisign, Inc., 545 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2008), the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals clarified the test for anticipation under 35 U.S.C. §102(a).

The patents in the case covered systems for conducting credit card transactions over the internet. The existing systems involve four different entities: a customer, the issuing bank for the customer’s credit card, a merchant, and the merchant’s bank. The inventor developed his system in response to two problems with the existing systems. First, the existing systems required prospective purchasers to send their confidential credit card information to an unknown merchant over the Internet. Second, in the existing systems, the banks that had issued the customers’ credit cards imposed stringent requirements on merchants.
 Continue Reading Federal Circuit Clarifies Requirements for Anticipation of Patent Claims

By Audrey A. Millemann

The beginning of the year is a good time to review your clients’ intellectual property needs. The first and most important thing to do is to determine what intellectual property the client has. Once the intellectual property has been identified, the means of protecting it can be analyzed and a plan for establishing protection set up. 

What is Intellectual Property?

Almost anything can constitute intellectual property. IP may fall into one or more of the following categories: inventions that can be patented, expression that is copyrightable, names or logos that are trademarks, and information that is a trade secret. Continue Reading Intellectual Property Basics