DESIGN, PLANT & UTILITY PATENTS: PROTECTING YOUR STARTUP'S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

ENET presents ... DESIGN, PLANT, AND UTILITY PATENTS: PROTECTING YOUR STARTUP'S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

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To REGISTER go here ($10) : https://boston-enet.org/event-4411622

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The US Patent and Trademark Office issues at least three kinds of patents. Utility patents are generally well known. They protect novel products, systems, techniques, and processes. Two other kinds of patents issued by the USPTO may be relevant to startups. Design patents protect the ornamental aspects of things and can be hugely important as illustrated by the Apple v Samsung infringement litigation over certain aspects of phones and tablets. Plant patents are perhaps becoming more important. For example, 50 plant patents have been issued by the US Patent Office protecting many varieties of cannabis and hemp. Startups should also consider trademarks as an extension of their patent strategies. Now seems like a great time to review the kinds of patents and why patents and other forms of intellectual property matter.

Questions that our panel of experts will address include:

What are utility, provisional, design and plant patents?
What protections do each of these patents offer to a company, its investors, and shareholders?
What are the tradeoffs between investing in IP, product development, and getting to market?
What are the technology and market differences in the timing of investing in IP?
When do investors care about IP?
When and where should companies consider protecting IP in foreign countries?
This meeting’s presentations and discussion will cover the importance of IP to various people and aspects of startup companies, including, founders, investors, inventors, engineering, product development, and marketing.

A question and answer session will follow the panel discussion, and panelists will be available afterward for responses to individual questions.

Agenda:

7:00 – 7:10 PM – ENET Chairperson's announcements

7:10 – 7:25 PM – eMinute Pitch - Up to 3 Startup companies’ presentations

7:25 – 8:10 PM – expert speakers on the night's topic

8:10 – 8:30 PM – Moderator and Audience Q & A with the speakers

8:30 – 9:00 PM – Networking on Zoom (meet with speakers & moderator)

(All times are USA Eastern Daylight time, webinars will not be recorded)

Speakers:

David Burns, Partner at McCarter & English LLP
David Burns is a Partner at McCarter & English LLP’s Boston, MA office. For over 12 years David was an Electrical Engineer at Raytheon Company. While there, he worked in the areas of signal processing, radar system integration, and the development, design, and manufacture of the principal phased array antenna for the IRIDIUM constellation of communication satellites.

J. Peter Fasse, Principal at Fish & Richardson P.C.
Peter Fasse is a Principal in the Boston office of Fish & Richardson (Fish), and has been working at Fish since 1987. Peter has two B.S. degrees from MIT, in Life Sciences and Bioelectrical Engineering.

William E. Hilton, Partner at Gesmer Updegrove, LLP
Bill is a scientist at heart who concentrates on logical legal analyses. With Bill’s B.S. in electrical engineering and B.A. in computer science, Bill can speak the language of any technology entrepreneur as well as provide sharp legal advice.