Michael Coblenz Attorney At Law

09/24/2025

Due to the on-going chaos in the country, the Nepalese Trademark Office has suspended operations.

09/17/2024

Just had to share. I just got bi***ed out because my office-mate was not at the office today. I've had plenty of clients chew me out, but this is the first time a non-client yelled at me. What a day.

04/19/2023

https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/reminder-uspto-transitioning-electronic-patent-grants-occurring-april-18

Starting today the US Patent Office will no longer issue Ribbon Copies of US Patents. All patents will be electronic, though you can still get a ceremonial copy for a fee of $25

All patents issued on April 18, 2023 and forward will be issued as eGrants

08/08/2022

Over the last few years there has been a slow rolling debate over what is and is not patentable. The main issue now involves the manipulation of products of nature. inventors have attempted to patent DNA and DNA sequences, which are technically products of nature, but are not really naturally occurring. Scientists have gone to great lengths to isolate and sequence this material, and feel that they should be able to patent not just the steps to sequence, or down-stream uses of the gene, but certain aspects of the gene sequence itself. The Supreme Court has weighed in, but the ruling was not particularly helpful. Now Congress is attempting to address the issue.

Today, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) released the first draft of the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2022, which if enacted would, overrule the Supreme Court’s decisions in AMP v. Myriad Genetics and Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories. The draft patent eligibility bill would...

11/04/2020

One of the great myths of patent law is the concept of the "Patent Troll" or a person or company that owns a weak patent (or group of patents), and uses those to extract money from companies by threatening to sue over patent infringement. The reality of patent law (and of all law, and really of most areas of life) is that large companies with lots or resources are always at an advantage. However, based on the myth of the patent troll, the Supreme Court tightened the rules of patent litigation, and now small entities find it almost impossible to protect their rights.
Judge Michel (the author of this article) is a former judge on the Federal Circuit, the appeals court that primarily hears patent appeals. In this article he blames the whole problem largely on former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

An untold story of the patent "reform" era is how the High Court (as well as the Congress) blithely accepted an exaggerated narrative spun by the PR campaign of the Coalition for Patent Fairness (CPF).

10/12/2020

Here is a very interesting historical analysis of innovation. One of the main points is to think past the obvious data and ask what the data means. Should you put extra armor plating on the wings because they get hit the most, or elsewhere, since the wings can take a bullet and the plane can still fly.

Survival bias permeates today’s tech world, especially the Silicon Valley, in the celebration of failure as a sine qua non for success, almost as a virtue, a badge of honor.

09/22/2020

The Supreme Court has been busy lately reshaping Trademark law. Here are four notable cases.

Trademark law has seen substantial developments in 2019 and 2020, with four major cases in the United States and Europe rising to the top.

06/05/2020

To sue for defamation you have to have a reputation that can be tarnished. If you are, as the Judge in the case said, a "racist, misogynist, and anti-gay, as well as a sexual predator, a drug-abuser, a thief, and an embezzler," your reputation cannot be harmed.

Former New York Met Lenny Dykstra sued a teammate last year for describing Dykstra's verbal abuse of another player in a recent book. But, a New York judge found Dykstra had already ruined his reputation all on his own. Find out more on FindLaw's Strategist.

03/19/2020

There have been some Facebook posts about patents for variants of coronavirus. That is inaccurate. It is not possible to obtain a patent on a naturally occurring phenomenon, like a virus. The case law involves human genes, but the same reasoning applies. It is not possible to get a patent on naturally occurring genetic material.
But it is possible to get a patent on a method of isolating or identifying genetic material, and there are a number of patents on that technology. This article describes a dispute between two companies regarding a patent to this type of isolation technology. The patent owner has offered a license to anyone using the patented method in developing potential COVID 19 vaccines or therapies.

Some people just hate patents and patent owners, we know that. But when tragedy is used to misinform and to advance an ideological agenda, we should all be able to agree that crosses a line.

02/03/2020

The UK is no longer part of the European Union. Previously it was possible to get a "European Trademark" and a "European Patent" which applied in all 28 member nations. That is no longer the case, but there is a transition period for current and pending marks and patents. The following article is a cursory overview of what has changed with Brexit, and what will be addressed down the road.

The Withdrawal Agreement Act 2020 received Royal Assent on January 23 and was approved by the European Parliament on January 29. That means that the UK will leave the European Union at 11:00 pm GMT on January 31, 2020 and the EU will then have 27 rather than 28 Member States.