IP Law Bulletin

Updated August 3, 2020

The coronavirus seems to be exerting itself upon all phases of life, and your intellectual property is not immune.  While you, your families, your friends, and your colleagues are getting comfortable with the new normal of social-distancing, intellectual property (IP) offices worldwide have also been grappling with how to handle the impact of coronavirus (also referred to as COVID-19).  Responses from IP offices around the world are varied and evolving, as the landscape changes in each individual country and on a global scale.  For example, some offices, such as the European Patent Office (EPO), India, and the United Kingdom, have automatically extended deadlines, while others have refrained from any extensions but permit, under certain circumstances, remedial action for rights lost due to effects of the coronavirus.  While the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has not provided for automatic extensions, certain deadlines associated with patent and trademark filings and fees may be extended for small and micro entities provided the delay in filing or payment was due to the COVID-19 outbreak.  Additionally, the USPTO will waive the petition fee to revive certain lost rights resulting from a failure to take action due to effects of the coronavirus. 

Building upon our recent note concerning general international intellectual property protection considerations, this article describes how foreign IP expansion efforts might play out in a case study format. The company, a hair restoration lotion manufacturer named WonderFlo Tonight, is fictional, but the fact pattern is derived from real world situations encountered by businesses as they seek to establish and protect their intellectual property in foreign markets.

The U.S. software industry continues to be an essential part of the national economy, often valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars. By all estimates, steady growth in the value and impact of the software industry will not slow down in 2018, aided by the continued evolution of software sectors and trends, such as augmented reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, enterprise, cybersecurity, blockchain, and IoT, among others. It therefore remains essential that software development companies take all reasonable measures to protect their software.

Website or information “service providers” who in the past have made hard-copy filings to designate agents to take advantage of the “safe harbor” liability shield provision under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) must re-register electronically by December 31, 2017 to maintain their status.

Professional service firms at times seem to focus on protecting the names of their service offerings or platforms at the expense of their house marks. Pat Concannon, a partner in Nutter’s Intellectual Property and Business Departments, with over 20 years of experience devoted to helping businesses establish and protect their brands, analyzes why professional service firms need to safeguard their house marks in Nutter Insights.

Bikram Choudhury, one of the most famous names in modern yoga, sought copyright protection in 2002 on a series of twenty-six yoga poses and two breathing exercises he developed and later called “the Sequence.” On October 8, 2015, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Sequence is not entitled to copyright protection because it is an “unprotectable idea.” The judges noted that the Sequence is akin to cooking recipes or surgical procedures. Accordingly, yoga studios that are not owned or operated by Choudhury are able to practice and teach the Sequence without concern for copyright infringement claims.