Latest News & Articles

Generally, patent searches are performed to investigate the patentability of the inventor’s invention, relative to the records available at the USPTO.

The search is conducted concerning the functional and design features of inventor’s invention, including identifying and searching the proper patent classification and subclasses. The patentability search should focus on the patents that are most relevant to inventor’s innovation and expanded outwards in class and backwards in time.

Patent searches conducted by The Law Firm of P. Jeffrey Martin, LLC are not a CD-Rom or an Internet search, but rather, a professional patentability search which includes an analysis of cited patents and an Opinion of Patentability by a Registered Patent Attorney. Any Patent Search without an opinion and a signature is worthless.

Importantly, incomplete or cursory patent searches can provide inaccurate results resulting in non-patentable subject matter and possibly patent infringement. Many invention promotion companies fail to conduct complete searches, i.e., identifying and searching the proper patent classification and subclasses.

A patent search should be performed before considering the filing of a patent application.

A provisional application for patent is a U. S. national application for patent filed in the USPTO under 35 U.S.C. §111(b). The provisional application provides the means to establish an early effective filing date in a non-provisional patent application filed under 35 U.S.C. §111(b). It also allows the term “Patent Pending” to be applied to the product, device, or innovation.
A provisional application has a pendency lasting 12 months from the date the provisional application is filed. The 12-month pendency period cannot be extended. Therefore, an applicant who files a provisional application must file a corresponding non-provisional application during the 12-month pendency period of the provisional application in order to benefit from the earlier filing of the provisional application. Otherwise, failure to do so results in abandonment of the provisional application and a loss of the “priority” filing date provided by the provisional application.

Design patents protect the ornamental and aesthetic nature of any final industrial design for your article of manufacture. In simpler terms, a design patent protects the visually perceptible characteristics or features of the object, namely, the shape and configuration.

Design patent applications are sometimes filed in conjunction with utility patent applications in order to provide comprehensive patent protection.

The Law Firm of P. Jeffrey Martin, LLC provides legal counsel and representation in regard to design patents in the following product classes:

• Consumer Electronics
• Sports & Leisure
• Health & Beauty Aids
• Toys
• Novelties
• Medical Devices
• Automotive Parts, Tools & Equipment
• Household Implements
• Pet Products

To discuss design patent protection for your product or device, Call 843-280-2400 or e-mail Registered Patent Attorney P. Jeff Martin directly and schedule a free initial consultation.

A utility patent is intended to protect the functionality of an invention, in addition to the material from which it is constructed.

A utility patent also applies to any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof. 35 U.S. C. §101.

The Law Firm of P. Jeffrey Martin, LLC works closely with inventors, engineers, scientists, companies, and university research facilities in preparing and applying for utility patents.

Patent Attorney P. Jeff Martin consults experts in electronics, design engineering, manufacturing, pharmacology, metallurgy, physics, and other fields in order to ensure clients receive the latest scientific analysis, thereby enhancing the strength of their applications.

Attorney Martin holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry as well as practical pharmaceutical lab experience. He has the knowledge and experience needed to understand and address technical concerns and issues.

If you or your company is in need of legal representation or advice regarding a utility patent, contact The Law Firm of P. Jeffrey Martin, LLC today to schedule an appointment to discuss your case.

The Law Firm of P. Jeffrey Martin, LLC provides legal counsel and representation in regard to utility patents in the following arts and technical fields:

• Chemical/Pharmaceutical
• E-Business and Information Technology
• Electronics and Communications
• Internet, Software and Business Methods
• Manufacturing Methods
• Medical devices
• Mechanical and Consumer Products
• Biotechnology
• Agribusiness

Foreign Patent Protection
A patent application filed with the USPTO protects the invention only in the U.S. If you are considering filing the patent application in foreign countries, but are unsure where, you have three foreign filing options to consider.

In the event a patent applicant files a patent application in a foreign country within one year of a U.S. filing date, the applicant retains the U.S. filing date as the priority date for the foreign patent application. Thus, if you file in a foreign country within one (1) year of filing in the U.S., you are considered to have filed in the foreign country on the same day that you filed in the U.S. Preserving this priority date is essential to assure the foreign patent application antedates prior art. Under this scenario, you are provided with three (3) foreign filing options.

Filing a foreign patent application directly in a specific country;
Filing a patent application with a regional patent examining authority, i.e., the European Patent Office (click here for current member states of the European Patent Office www.epo.org/about-us/epo/member-states.html ); and
Filing an international patent application with an international patent authority through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Using the PCT Filing Method
Filing through the PCT system, rather than directly into member countries, allows you to delay “National Phase” filing in these countries up to 30 months from your U.S. application filing date (31 months in some countries). The delay afforded by an international patent application can be very helpful by providing more time to allow you to develop a better idea of your markets and competitors. Filing through the PCT will give you up to 18 or 19 months additional time than you would normally have to file directly in foreign countries.

The international patent application is searched and examined on its merits in the office you select for that purpose. The office you select depends on your citizenship or your residence. For example, if you are a U.S. citizen or resident, you may use the USPTO, the Korean Intellectual Property Office, or the European Patent Office. The selected office will issue an International Search Report and an International Preliminary Report on Patentability.

Filing a Chapter II Demand for an International Preliminary Examination used to be necessary to secure the full delay period. The Demand filing is now optional in all but a few countries. The following countries not currently subject to the 30-month rule:

Tanzania, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Uganda.
At the end of the international process (typically 30 months from the priority date), the patent applicant must pursue direct national and/or regional filings. However, if direct national filings are selected, you do not need to file in every PCT member country.
The primary advantage of the PCT filing system is the delay of national filing costs. The PCT system is also a very appealing option for those seeking licensees for their foreign patent rights. A PCT application can keep your options open in numerous countries for a relatively low cost. If mutually agreed upon and accepted in a License Agreement, the licensee would pay the costs of prosecution in any countries in which the licensee is interested.

Contact The Law Firm of P. Jeffrey Martin, LLC in N. Myrtle Beach, SC to schedule a free initial consultation to discuss foreign patent protection.

A copyright is a form of protection provided to authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, artistic, musical, dramatic, and certain other tangible works.
The Law Firm of P. Jeffrey Martin, LLC can assist individuals and businesses in obtaining copyright protection for their works of art.

The owner of the copyright generally has the exclusive right to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords, to prepare derivative works based on the work, and to distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership. With respect to literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic works, pantomimes, audiovisual works and similar artistic works, the owner of the copyright generally has the exclusive right to publicly display and perform the work.
Copyright protection may also extend to pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works. The following is a list of such works:

Copyright Protection For An Original Work Of Authorship Does Not Extend To The Following:
• Ideas, concepts, discoveries, principles
• Formulas, processes, systems, method, procedures
• Words and short phrases, such as names, titles, and slogans
• Familiar symbols or designs
• Mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring

Call 843-280-2400 or e-mail Registered Patent Attorney P. Jeff Martin directly to schedule a free initial consultation concerning copyrights and related issues.

A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols, or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. Our contracted patent attorneys can assist clients in the chemical, pharmaceutical, medical devices, biotechnology, communications, electronics, mechanical, design, consumer products, Internet, and software industries with trademark and other intellectual property matters.

Legal Significance Concerning Federal Trademark (TM) Protection

The use of the trademark without federal registration provides only limited geographical coverage, may lead to the loss or limitation of trademark rights and may increase exposure to potential liability for infringing the trademark rights of others.
Federal TM protection provides constructive notice to the public of the registrant’s claim of ownership of the mark.

Federal TM protection enables the U.S. Customs Service to seize infringing goods at the port of entry without any court proceedings.

Federal TM protection enables a TM owner who uses the TM in commerce between as little as two states, i.e., South Carolina and Georgia, to enjoy nationwide protection.
Financial institutions may be more inclined to make a loan based on a recorded security interest in a federally registered TM.

Federal TM protection provides the ability to bring an action concerning the TM in federal court, thereby allowing the plaintiff to receive statutory damages and other types of damages, i.e., in TM counterfeit cases, statutory damages can range from $500 to $1,000 per counterfeit mark, per type of good or service sold, offered for sale, or distributed. Also, actual damages attributable to the infringement may be acquired. A court may also consider collection of a reasonable royalty and infringer’s profits.

Important Difference Between The Symbols “TM” and “®”
Typically, a trademark for goods appears on the product and/or packaging utilizing the “TM” or “®” designation to alert the public of a party’s claim. However, you may use the federal registration symbol “®” only after the USPTO actually registers a mark—not while an application is pending. The symbol “TM” may be used regardless of whether you have filed an application with the USPTO. Use of the “TM” symbol alerts the public that you intend to utilize your particular mark to identify and distinguish your source of goods or services. It also provides the owner of the mark with important priority rights in the mark.


Service Mark
A Service Mark trademark (SM) is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product.

Trade Dress
Trade dress is a distinctive, nonfunctional feature, which distinguishes a merchant’s or manufacturer’s goods or services from those of another. The trade dress of a product involves the “total image” and can include not only the configuration, shape and design of the goods, but also the color of the packaging as well.

Claiming Trade Dress Protection
To establish a superior right to your unique trade dress, your trade dress must indicate or be distinctive towards your business or product. This is accomplished by showing that the public associates your trade dress with a particular source. You can also claim trade dress protection if the public associates other products with your trade dress and believes the source to be your company, causing a likelihood of confusion.

Trade Secret
A trade secret is information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program device, method, technique, or process, that derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use, and is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.

In more basic terms, a trade secret is any valuable business knowledge or information, which affords economic advantage over others and is subject to reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy. Generally, a trade secret will be protected from exploitation by those acquiring its access through improper means or parties. Trade secret misappropriation is similarly related to a type of unfair competition. Remedies for infringement of a trade secret include damages, profits, reasonable royalties, and injunctive relief.

To initiate your FREE INITIAL consultation, download the Official Record of Trademark form and follow the instructions provided therein.

Click here to visit the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Website

Call 843-280-2400 or e-mail Registered Patent Attorney P. Jeff Martin directly to schedule a free initial consultation concerning trademark searches, state or federal trademark application filings, and other trademark issues.

Attorney P. Jeff Martin can provide legal assistance in the following patent-related matters and fields:

Mechanical, Design and Consumer Products – The firm provides patent and other IP-related services to clients who produce a variety of consumer products.

Chemical/Pharmaceutical – Assisting research, technology, and development clients with securing, protecting, and managing intellectual property; licensing; assignments; and other business transactions in the chemical and pharmaceutical fields.

Medical Devices – The firm provides IP services to clients for biomedical devices, such as drug delivery systems, orthopedic devices, hemostatic agents, and cosmetic enhancement devices, utilized in the practice of medicine or medical treatment.

Biotechnology – Biotechnological inventions may include tissue generation, cell lines, microbes, antibody production, nucleic acids, proteins, microorganisms and transgenic multi-cellular organisms.

Communications and Electronics – The firm provides intellectual property service to clients possessing innovations in E-business, Information Technology, E-Commerce, and the Electronics industry.

Internet, Software, and Business Methods – As website and software companies grow, their need to gain property rights over these advances grows correspondingly. The firm provides intellectual property services to clients in a broad range of software technology.

Patent Searches
Generally, patent searches are performed to investigate the patentability of the inventor’s invention, relative to the records available at the USPTO.

The search is conducted concerning the functional and design features of inventor’s invention, including identifying and searching the proper patent classification and subclasses. The patentability search should focus on the patents that are most relevant to inventor’s innovation and expanded outwards in class and backwards in time.

Patent searches conducted by The Law Firm of P. Jeffrey Martin, LLC are not a CD-Rom or an Internet search, but rather, a professional patentability search which includes an analysis of cited patents and an Opinion of Patentability by a Registered Patent Attorney. Any Patent Search without an opinion and a signature is worthless.

Importantly, incomplete or cursory patent searches can provide inaccurate results resulting in non-patentable subject matter and possibly patent infringement. Many invention promotion companies fail to conduct complete searches, i.e., identifying and searching the proper patent classification and subclasses.

A patent search should be performed before considering the filing of a patent application.

Call 843-280-2400 or e-mail Registered Patent Attorney P. Jeff Martin directly to schedule a free initial consultation concerning patent searches, patent application filings, and how to acquire patent-pending status.

What Is a Patent?
A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Generally, the term of protection for a new patent is twenty (20) years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to payment of maintenance fees.

The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute (35 U.S.C. §101) and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention. Once a patent is issued, the patentee must enforce the patent without assistance from the USPTO.

There are three types of issuable patents:

1. Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, 35 U.S.C. §101;
2. Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture, 35 U.S.C. §171; and
3. Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant, including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings, other than a tuber propagated plant or a plant found in an uncultivated state, 35 U.S.C. §161.

Provisional Patent
A provisional application for patent is a U. S. national application for patent filed in the USPTO under 35 U.S.C. §111(b). The provisional application provides the means to establish an early effective filing date in a non-provisional patent application filed under 35 U.S.C. §111(b). It also allows the term “Patent Pending” to be applied to the product, device, or innovation.
A provisional application has a pendency lasting 12 months from the date the provisional application is filed. The 12-month pendency period cannot be extended. Therefore, an applicant who files a provisional application must file a corresponding non-provisional application during the 12-month pendency period of the provisional application in order to benefit from the earlier filing of the provisional application. Otherwise, failure to do so results in abandonment of the provisional application and a loss of the “priority” filing date provided by the provisional application.

The Advantages of filing a Provisional Patent Application
Filing a provisional application provides the applicant with patent-pending status. Acquiring patent-pending is a near necessity before presenting new ideas to companies. Based upon my prior years of experience, the majority of companies require newly-submitted ideas to have acquired, at a minimum, patent-pending.
In addition, generally, filing a provisional patent application is the most cost efficient method for securing patent-pending. Government filing fees are significantly less than those associated with utility and design patent applications. Attorney’s fees associated with provisional applications are also substantially less than those associated with utility applications.

To initiate your FREE INITIAL consultation, download the Official Record of Invention from and follow the instructions provided therein.

Click here to visit the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Website

Call 843-280-2400 or e-mail Registered Patent Attorney P. Jeff Martin directly to schedule a free initial consultation concerning patent searches, patent application filings, and patent-pending acquisition.

Intellectual property (IP) refers generically to property rights created through intellectual and/or discovery efforts of a creator that are generally protectable under patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, trade dress, and the like. Value is generally derived through the application of the invention in commerce.

Properly identifying and fully developing the commercial value of IP assets can be a complex and challenging process. These challenges can be addressed by first obtaining broad protection of an entity’s IP rights in ways that facilitate the commercial development of those assets for maximum return. An effective strategy often includes uncovering possible market opportunities, developing the marketability of these assets, and developing methods of gaining market access.

Intellectual Property Infringement
Infringement of intellectual property occurs when another person, company, or entity invades any one of the exclusive rights of a person’s intellectual property.

Manner of infringing Intellectual Property
Utility patent: Making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing of a patented product or process without permission.

Design patent: Construction of a design that, to the ordinary person, is substantially the same as an existing design, where the resemblance is intended to induce an individual to purchase one thing supposing it to be another.

Trademark: The unauthorized use or imitation of a mark that is the property of another in order to deceive, confuse, or mislead others.

Copyright: The unauthorized reproduction, adaptation, distribution, performance in public, or display in public of the copyrighted work of another.

An appropriate court may grant an injunction to prevent and/or stop further infringement. Items or articles, which are allegedly infringing on another’s intellectual property rights, can be impounded while the action is pending. The items in dispute may be ordered destroyed or subject to other disposition if there is an infringement.

An infringer can be liable for actual damages plus additional profits of the infringer or statutory damages

An alleged intellectual property infringer may also be held liable for injury to business reputation or the dilution in the value of the copyright, patent, or trademark. A prevailing party may be awarded costs and attorney’s fees from the infringer.

In the event you reasonably believe a third party has infringed your intellectual property, or if you have received a cease-and-desist letter, attorney P. Jeff Martin may be able to assist you in the initial steps for preventing and/or stopping infringement.

Contact The Law Firm of P. Jeffrey Martin, LLC in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to schedule a free initial consultation to discuss intellectual property infringement.