When most people think or speak generally about patents, they’re really talking about utility patents – or patents that are primarily concerned with how an invention is used and how it works. But as it turns out, this is just one specific type of patent on the complete menu of options available for protecting your innovations. Another option, called a design patent, exists to – additionally or alternatively – protect the appearance of your invention. And whether you find yourself in an either/or...
Apr 27, 2026•56 min•Season 6Ep. 3
Willful infringement is a patent law concept that applies when someone infringes a patent knowingly or with reckless disregard for the patent holder’s rights. It goes beyond accidental infringement, often involving a deliberate choice to use protected work despite awareness of the rights holder. With unintentional infringement, the infringer can still be required to pay damages, negotiate a license, or face an injunction to halt the infringing activities. If the infringement is deemed willful, h...
Feb 27, 2026•1 hr 15 min•Season 6Ep. 2
Patent abandonment is the premature relinquishment of patent rights for an invention. Abandonment can happen voluntarily for various strategic and cost reasons, but can also happen silently and unintentionally. It can happen before the right is even granted in the case of public disclosure. But it can also happen after the patent has been granted at many key points in its otherwise useful life and window of exclusivity. Like with other property rights, securing your patent isn’t the end of the l...
Jan 28, 2026•53 min•Season 6Ep. 1
What are your options for protecting inventions across Europe? In this month’s episode, we’re taking a journey across the pond with a discussion on European Patent Practice. This episode is part two of a series we’re doing on International Patenting and follows Ashley’s exceptional Travel Guide to Foreign Protection from earlier this season. Even in a globalized economy, patents are still nationalized documents. For example, a U.S. patent only grants the right to exclude others from making, usin...
Nov 07, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Season 5Ep. 7
In this month’s episode, we’re talking about patent marking – and its massive implications on your ability to collect on infringement damages. We’ve all seen patent numbers on physical products. Much like their copyright and trademark cousins, these designations are far from cosmetic. And instead serve a statutory requirement to provide public notice about your protected intellectual property. In the case of patent marking, not only does it reduce the risk of infringement because you are informi...
Sep 23, 2025•50 min•Season 5Ep. 6
Whether you’re a founder looking to take the next fundraising steps beyond bootstrapping, an aspiring angel investor looking to understand the risks of seed investing, or even a practitioner hoping to get a better grasp of how this all works hand-in-hand with patent strategy, today’s topic provides an incredible springboard into the high risk, high reward world of strategic fundraising for early-stage startups. ** Guest Host: Charlie Pascal ** To help us with the specifics, we’ve enlisted the as...
Jul 11, 2025•55 min•Season 5Ep. 5
In today’s global economy, the importance of international patent protection cannot be overstated. Your invention could be conceived of with a workforce distributed across several continents. Your manufacturing could happen in Asia or India, while your products are shipped into and distributed from ports in the target markets of the largest economies across the globe. Would be competitors and infringers could be next door neighbors or perhaps across the pond. But as you’ll learn today, there is ...
May 27, 2025•58 min•Season 5Ep. 4
In this month’s episode, we’re getting high on innovation with a deep dive into cannabis patents! As more and more states relax restrictions on both medical and recreational uses of marijuana and hemp, the U.S. cannabis industry is projected to reach $50 billion in sales this year and over $74.6 billion by 2032! This rapid growth is happening despite immense challenges brought on by a complex and conflicting web of legal disparities between federal and state laws. These legal challenges include ...
Apr 21, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Season 5Ep. 3
If a court stripped away your property rights, wouldn’t you at least want an explanation? The answer is obvious, but the reality is appalling. The practice of revoking patent rights on appeal without explanation has been happening to inventors at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (CAFC) at an alarming rate. In over 43% of PTAB cases on appeal at the CAFC, inventors receive a single-word response – “AFFIRMED” – rather than an opinion. This practice is referred to as the application of Rule 36 ...
Mar 17, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 5Ep. 2
So, your patent application got rejected. Now what? In this month’s episode, we’re talking about rejection. Specifically, the type that comes from the patent office in the form of an intimidating sounding three-digit number when your application gets denied by an examiner. Some time after submitting your application, it goes into a process with the patent office called examination. This is the part of your patent’s prosecution journey where an examiner reviews your application for conformance to...
Feb 06, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Season 5Ep. 1
An invention cannot be patented if the differences between your claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was conceived. Determining obviousness – and the validity of your patent – is more than simply establishing that the invention doesn’t already exist and that it isn’t documented elsewhere. Its conception must also not have otherwise been obvious to those in ...
Dec 06, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Patent examiners can make mistakes. Patent office clerks can misfile paperwork and cause procedural errors. The software tools, document formats like DOCX, and the IT systems your application passes through can have bugs. What recourse do you have when quality issues creep in at this stage? This is where petition practice, fortunately, comes to the rescue. ** Quality Patents Part 5 ** This is our final episode in a multi-part series focused on quality patents. The prior four episodes have all be...
Nov 05, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 4Ep. 10
For inventors, the promise of the patent system is the right to exclude others from making, using, importing, and selling their patented innovations for a limited period. But how do patent holders actually enforce those rights, particularly when the copycat product is being manufactured outside of domestic jurisdiction? In an otherwise challenging time for rights assertion, the ITC – or International Trade Commission – can be one of the most impactful long-range weapons an inventor has in their ...
Oct 01, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 4Ep. 9
There’s not a more important concept that’s more widely misunderstood by those newer to patenting than continuations. So we’re dedicating Part 3 of our series on quality patents to everything you need to know about this essential step for future proofing and increasing the value of your portfolio. Void of pursuing continuations, the language of your patent is frozen in time at issuance. The specifics of the enforceable boundaries of your protection are forever fixed to the claims you chose to pu...
Sep 06, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 4Ep. 8
The most terrifying thing that can happen to a patent owner is receiving what’s called an IPR or Inter Partes Review petition. This is a tool that accused infringers can use to invalidate patents. And they have … to alarming effect. As we’ve discussed, the kill rate at the PTAB is staggering. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board – or as regular listeners of this audience more commonly know it as, the "Patent Death Squad" – has racked up a claim execution rate north of 84% and the death of thousands...
Aug 01, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Is your patent a vanity piece of paper for your office wall? Or is it a reliable, defendable, assertable, property right? The difference is often quality. Is your patent simply a transactional cost and a large pile of legal bills for your startup? Or is it a leverageable asset worthy of attracting precious investment dollars, worth its cost in multiples of valuation? The difference is often quality. Is your patent application only good enough to get through the examination process? Or has it bee...
Jul 02, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 6
We’ve seen few entrepreneurial success stories that haven’t involved heavy doses of perseverance, grit, observation, and creative problem-solving. Today’s guest possesses these qualities in spades. And while I can’t necessarily recommend some of the more death-defying specifics of his approach … at least not without a lot of “don’t try this at home” fine print :) … I do think that most inventors and aspiring entrepreneurs will benefit immensely from studying our guest's thoughtfully crafted, tim...
Jun 03, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 4Ep. 5
The difference between getting claim construction right and getting it wrong is the difference between a valid patent and an invalid patent – and the difference between millions of dollars awarded from infringement decisions vs. ending up with a worthless piece of paper. In this month’s episode, Dr. David Jackrel , President of Jackrel Consulting, leads a discussion into three real-world applications for patent claim construction, as tested and decided upon by the United States Court of Appeals ...
May 01, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 4Ep. 4
We’re talking about AI and its impact on the patent system. This month's episode evaluates where we presently are and considers where it could all be heading. Dr. David Jackrel and Dr. Ashley Sloat lead a two-part discussion with our all-star panel that begins with a deep dive on the present state of AI patent tools for searching, proofreading, drafting, and prosecution – and then moves on to an exploration of how these tools could eventually provide solutions for many problems plaguing the indu...
Mar 20, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Our interview with James Howard, Founder and Executive Director of the Black Inventors Hall of Fame. James Howard is a college professor, design historian, entrepreneur, industrial designer, inventor, filmmaker, and restauranteur. He brings over 25 years of experience as a design professor and has authored a course on Design Thinking and Design History that explores the impact of design on society. As an accomplished Industrial Design educator and entrepreneur, Howard has lectured on the experie...
Feb 22, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Claim construction is a process in which courts attempt to interpret the meaning and scope of the claims of a patent. It’s like reconstructing what an inventor and their practitioner meant back when they drafted the patent application. While your patent might not be tested in a court for many years, understanding the sometimes surprising language specifics and context traps while drafting now can help set you up for success later when defending your patent or attempting to stop an infringer. The...
Jan 31, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 4Ep. 1
From patenting classic boardgames like Monopoly and Battleship back in the 1930s to challenges with protecting modern innovations in areas like game development and VR, our experts are breaking down everything you need to know about patenting games so you don’t end up just rolling the dice when investing in protections for your entertaining innovations. As a bonus, in this month’s episode, we’re bringing you two dealers: Dr. David Jackrel , President of Jackrel Consulting, will be covering the p...
Nov 24, 2023•57 min•Season 3Ep. 9
We’re talking about claims – the fundamental building blocks of a patent. There simply is not a more important concept to grasp in all of patenting. As a former chief justice of the Federal Circuit once famously said, “The name of the game is the claim.” And in terms of what game you’re playing, the claims are where you separate the patents playing checkers from the patents playing chess. This is where your patent practitioner earns their money and as you’ll learn today, also where the most cost...
Oct 06, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 3Ep. 8
In this month's episode, we’re talking about the use of government grants and the strings that can come attached to your IP! We’re exploring the various types of small business research grants, how the Bayh-Dole Act regulates inventions generated under government grants, licensing and ownership implications for your patent when using federal dollars, and the sticky webs that you may find yourself in if you are not carefully tracking IP and adhering to the numerous provisions and timelines. Dr. A...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 7
In this month’s episode, we’re talking about Jack Daniels, Mickey Mouse, Andy Warhol, Jason Voorhees, Winnie-the-Pooh, Lizzo, and WallStreetBets … What do they have to do with patents you might fairly be wondering? Honestly, not much. Patents are our focus in our business and in this podcast, so we devote a lot of air time to talking about protecting ideas and inventions, but in the realm of intellectual property, patents have some pretty close cousins. In thinking more broadly about creating th...
Jul 27, 2023•1 hr 52 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Why do patents exist in the first place? What function do they serve in society? And what is their historic origin story? In this month’s episode, with the help of Professor Adam Mossoff, we zoom way out, turn the time dial back a bit, and focus on the genesis of patents. There’s a special kind of magic that happens when individual incentives align with societal good. Abraham Lincoln, who believed that the creation of the patent system was only surpassed by the discovery of America and the inven...
Jun 27, 2023•2 hr 6 min•Season 3Ep. 5
What do investors want to see in patents? What do patents tell a potential investor about a founder? And what do investors wish inventors knew before coming to them? To answer these questions and more, we're joined this month by Dr. Sridhar Iyengar, an angel investor and accomplished serial entrepreneur in the medical devices and wearables space. Having been on both sides of the table, Dr. Iyengar's unique insights provide a comprehensive understanding of the essential role that patents can play...
May 30, 2023•55 min•Season 3Ep. 4
How does the use of or contribution to open-source software impact your intellectual property rights? In this month's episode, we’re talking about software and the convoluted risk/reward interplay between patents, copyrights, and open source. Use of free open-source code can be an invaluable tool when building complex software applications. Why reinvent wheels? And depending on resources and budget, sometimes it’s the only practical way. But like with most things, free often isn’t really free. T...
Apr 27, 2023•52 min•Season 3Ep. 3
In this month's episode, we're talking patent reform solutions with Judge Paul Michel, Professor Adam Mossoff, and Randy Landreneau! Nearly two decades worth of Federal Circuit and Supreme Court rulings have thrown the patent system into disarray and weakened patent rights for inventors. Subject matter eligibility is a confused, chaotic mess – leaving even the Federal Circuit Chief Justice at a loss on how to determine eligibility. The muddied state of invention enablement puts at risk the softw...
Mar 28, 2023•2 hr 35 min•Season 3Ep. 2
We’re leading off Season 3 with a close look at a Supreme Court patent case that could have profound impacts on the invention enablement problems we covered heavily in Season 2 . SCOTUS is set to hear opening arguments in Amgen v. Sanofi on March 27th. For the first time in over 75 years, the Supreme Court is evaluating the meaning and scope of the enablement requirement. For those who’ve been following along, you’ll know that this has become one of the bigger issues plaguing patenting and espec...
Feb 28, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Season 3Ep. 1
