The Intellectual Property Seminar will be on Thursday December 9th at 3:30pm in the conference room at the TECenter on BSU West Campus in Nampa. See the outline below for information on what will be discussed. Please RSVP to Mark Zuziak at markzuziak@boisestate.edu. Matthew Whipple & Peter Midgley from Holland and Midgley Intellectual Property Law will be the speakers.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ESSENTIALS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
I. WHY IS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IMPORTANT TO THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER?
II. FORMS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
A. Brief discussion of distinctions between patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets
III. PATENTS
A. Brief overview of the patenting process
B. Some pertinent patent law
1. The meaning of invention
2. Who owns your invention?
3. What is prior art?
C. Avoiding potential pitfalls
1. How to keep lab notebooks correctly
2. How to avoid losing the right to patent your invention by creating potential prior art in the U.S. and abroad
3. How not to give away ownership rights to your patent
IV. TRADEMARKS AND COPYRIGHTS
A. Ownership issues
V. TRADE SECRETS
A. When to use trade secrets
B. Benefits and risks of keeping a trade secret
VI. AVOIDING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY INFINGEMENT AND LITIGATION
A. Clearance searches
B. Opinions
VII. DEVELOPING AN OVERALL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY STRATEGY AND THE I.P. AUDIT