Yelp/ Youtube reviews have become ubiquitous. Almost every business gets reviewed, some positive and some negative. While positive reviews are always welcomed, negative reviews scorn some business owners to the extent that they contact us for legal advice.

Here’s a hypothetical situation.

Prospective client: “I want to sue them!”

Why?

Prospective client: “They wrote a negative review about my business. This is defamation!”

Well, only reviews which have false assertion of facts are defamatory, other statements are mere opinions.

Prospective client: “So they can write whatever they want to about me and my business, I am losing money!”

If the…

May 23, 2020: Case update below.

Rachel Maddow has found herself in the midst of a legal battle in California for allegedly defaming a conservative news network, One America News (OAN) Network, by stating that the network, “really, literally is paid Russian propaganda.” While some have opined that Maddow has shown “a pattern of misleading and dishonest asymmetry” in her reporting — an indicia of poor journalistic skills — this is an interesting case since it highlights the limitations of defamation law. She will most likely have the case tossed out.

However, in court filed documents, Maddow’s attorney referred to…

A Policy Argument on Accountability

Regardless of your political affiliation, the book titled, ‘A Warning’ by an anonymous senior White House official marks a new low in the history of American journalism. The publisher, Hachette Book Group, subjects readers to unsubstantiated allegations written by a nameless author — allegations that cannot be critically evaluated unless the author is identified and sources deemed credible.

The Washington Post states that the book describes Trump as unfit to be president and a danger to national security. …

Why Patent Open Source Based Software?

Open-source software is a multi-billion dollar industry. However, almost every open-source developer I have met hates patents. They unequivocally loathe & despise patents, despite the fact that someone else exploits their hard work.

Wondering how to prepare for the Patent Bar for free?

With some planning and hard work you can pass the patent bar without spending a dime on professional courses. As a practitioner in the field (and from experience) I can tell you how I prepared and passed the patent bar in the first attempt.

A Disclaimer

Before I begin, a customary disclaimer. The following is a suggestive studying method based on my experience and may (or may not) work for everybody. …

Often times an individual or company may want to challenge the issuance of a patent to another entity. This could be due to many reasons, e.g., inventor not named by company, incorrect claim of inventorship, fraud, inequitable conduct, violation of duty of disclosure, prior art documents, etc. The USPTO provides a mechanism to file a protest to a pending application under 37 CFR 1.291. “Any member of the public, including private persons, corporate entities, and government agencies, may file a protest… .” MPEP Section 1901.01.

Information needed to file a protest

Any information that can provide a showing against patentability of a pending application can be…

Since in the US patent system, inventorship is recognized instead of the company to whom the inventor may be obligated to assign their rights, inventorship issues–especially in big companies–seem to have become commonplace. Managers (incorrectly) claiming to be inventors, rightful inventors being excluded from a patent application, adding names of other people who are not really inventors, etc., are some of the most common issues inventors complain about.

Who can rightfully claim to be an inventor?

As stated in MPEP Section 2137.01:

The threshold question in determining inventorship is who conceived the invention. Unless a person contributes to the conception of the invention, he is not an inventor…

Patenting Business Method Based Software/ Mobile Apps

As I describe in my previous post titled, How to patent software in the U.S. (2019), a business method software patent is any invention that performs a business activity through software (e.g., taxi hailing apps, financial transactions based apps, dating apps, etc.). However, the USPTO and courts do not like when an attempt is made to monopolize a business activity simply because it is implemented in software. Therefore, software can be patented as long as the patent application is not crafted to create an industry wide monopoly. This requires strategic planning.

A Hypothetical

The best way to explain what is needed to…