New patents for West Virginia inventors

The following U.S. patent was issued last week to West Virginia inventors:

7,256,384  Signal-enhancement system for photodetector outputs
  Inventors: Gottesman, Tal (Morgantown, WV)
                 Mcgee, Bernard J. (Wheeling, WV)
                 Bose-Mullick, Vikram A. (Morgantown, WV)

The following U.S. patent applications were published last week for West Virginia applicants and/or assignees:

20070191559  Single catalyst low, medium and high density polyethylenes
  Inventors: Kolb, Rainer (Kingwood, TX)
                 Szul, John F. (Hurricane, WV)
  Assignee: Univation Technologies, LLC (Houston, TX)

20070190130  Protein hydrolysate excipients
  Inventors: Mark, William Antonio (Morgantown, WV)
                 Hall, Lloyd Thomas (Doswell, VA)

New trademark registrations for West Virginia owners

The following U.S. trademark registrations were issued last week to West Virginia owners:

3,277,298  APPLE XTREME
  Owner: Tyler Mountain Water Company, Inc. (Poca, WV)

3,277,297  CITRUS XTREME
  Owner: Tyler Mountain Water Company, Inc. (Poca, WV)

3,274,945  SNOW NEWS IS GOOD NEWS
  Owner: Snowshoe Mountain, Inc. (Snowshoe, WV)

3,277,251  CLEAR MONEY
  Owner: Bruceton Bank (Bruceton Mills, WV)

3,277,250  CLEAR CHECKING
  Owner: Bruceton Bank (Bruceton Mills, WV)

3,276,934  STORMBREAKER PLUS
  Owner: Simonton Building Products, Inc. (Parkersburg, WV)

3,274,111  DISCOVER YOUR SUCCESS
  Owner: Mountain State University (Beckley, WV)

The following U.S. trademark registration applications were filed last week by West Virginia owners:

77/251,171  (design only)
  Owner: Karen Valentine (Shepherdstown, WV)

77/251,028  GO GREEN GALS.COM (design)
  Owner: Karen Valentine (Shepherdstown, WV)

77/250,208  PAD
  Owner: American Public University System, Inc. (Charles Town, WV)

77/250,108  AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION, INC.
  Owner: American Public Education, Inc. (Charles Town, WV)

77/249,776  PARTNERSHIP AT A DISTANCE
  Owner: American Public University System, Inc. (Charles Town, WV)

New patents for West Virginia inventors

The following U.S. patents were issued this week to West Virginia inventors and/or assignees:

7,253,315  Process for preparing fluorocarboxylic acids
  Inventors: Fu, Ta-Wei (Vienna, WV)
                 Swearingen, Steven H. (Wilmington, DE)
                 Ichida, Takuya (Settsu, JP)
                 Yoshii, Shigeyuki (Settsu, JP)
  Assignee: Daikin Industries, Ltd. (Osaka, JP)
                  E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (Wilmington, DE)

7,252,755  Viscosity modification of heavy hydrocarbons
  Inventors: Kiser, Melvin D. (Huntington, WV)
                 Boyer, David C. (Huntington, WV)
  Assignee: Marathon Ashland Petroleum Co. (Findlay, OH)

7,252,605  Articulated football goal including sacrificial crossbar
  Inventor: Snider, James L. (Bridgeport, WV)

The following U.S. patent applications were published this week for West Virignia applicants and/or assignees:

20070186283  Apparatus and method for providing program protection engineering, security management, and report preparation for sensitive and classified projects
  Applicants: Brumbaugh, Kenneth Leroy (Ashburn, VA)
                    Low, Howard Bruce (Shepherdstown, WV)
                    Hamilton, Gregory Chase (Rockville, MD)
                    Davis, James Elbert JR. (Manassas, VA)
                    Fan, Wendy Yijun (Centreville, VA)
20070185298  Organosilicate resin formulation for use in microelectronic devices
  Applicants: Baikerikar, Kiran K. (Midland, MI)
                    Feng, Shaoguang (Midland, MI)
                    Hetzner, Jack E. (Reese, MI)
                    Maher, John M. (Charleston, WV)
                    Mills, Michael E. (Midland, MI)
                    Popa, Paul J. (Auburn, MI)
                    Strittmatter, Richard J. (Batavia, IL)
                    Wilson, Larry R. (Beaverton, MI)

20070184918  Golf tee setting device
  Applicant: Ritchie, John I. JR. (Ridgeley, WV)

20070182552  Security screening and support system
  Applicants: Dugan, Regina E. (Rockville, MD)
                    McVeigh, Thomas Emory (Shenandoah Junction, WV)
                    Kotowicz, Jacek (Fairfax, VA)

20070181733  Wire/fiber ring and method for manufacturing the same
  Applicants: Hanusiak, William (Bridgeport, WV)
                    Hanusiak, Lisa (Bridgeport, WV)
                    Spear, Steven (Bridgeport, WV)
                    Rowe, Charles (Wheeling, WV)
                    Parnell, Jeffery (Chelmsford, MA)
  Assignee: SEQUA CORPORATION (Hackensack, NJ)

20070181617  Container insulator capable of being rolled-up
  Applicant: Ramsey, Chevy T. (Idamay, WV)

New trademark registrations for West Virginia owners

The following U.S. trademark registrations were issued last week to West Virginia owners:

3,272,107  THREAD SAVER
  Owner: Ray Lambert Enterprises, Inc. (Sophia, WV)

The following U.S. trademark registration applications were filed last week by West Virginia owners:

77/241,806  (design)
  Owner: Woodcraft Supply, LLC (Parkersburg, WV)

77/245,400  LAWV
  Owner: Legal Aid of West Virginia (Charleston, WV)

77/245,372  LEGAL AID OF WEST VIRGINIA
  Owner: Legal Aid of West Virginia (Charleston, WV)

77/244,851  WET-FLOW (design)
  Owner: Englo, Inc. (Beckley, WV)

77/243,777  SHINE! (design)
  Owner: Price, Rebecca A. DBA SHINE! Puppets (Charleston, WV)

77/242,780  (design)
  Owner: Woodcraft Supply, LLC (Parkersburg, WV)

77/242,758  (design)
  Owner:  Woodcraft Supply, LLC (Parkersburg, WV)

It’s so easy a child can do it …

This article points out that although you can now file your own federal trademark registration application online, you would be well advised to consult an attorney experienced in trademark matters before doing so.  You may waste some of your hard-earned money by not identifying the trademark and/or goods or services in such a way as to give you the best protection.

Inventor advice

Here’s a short article with some tips for inventors.

New patents for West Virginia inventors

No U.S. patents were issued this week to West Virginia owners

The following U.S. patent applications were published this week for West Virginia applicants and/or assignees:

20070176155  Flame-Retardant Magnesium Hydroxide Compositions and Associated Methods of Manufacture and Use
  Inventors: Granada, Jr., Lemuel O. (Manistee, MI)
                    Innes, James (Mount Vernon, WA)
                    Smith, David Morgan (Kearneysville, WV)
                    Wajer, Mark (Nottingham, MD)
  Assignee: Martin Marietta Materials, Inc.

20070175738  Conveyor belt
  Inventors: Neely, D. Joseph (Gerrardstown, WV)
                    Neely, Aaron Brantly (Gerrardstown, WV)
  Assignee: Ashworth Bros. Inc. (Winchester, VA)

20070175566  Method of increasing the load capacity of a radial tire
  Inventors: Frank, Maurice Jacob (Akron, OH)
                    Wilton, Steven Michael (Van Buren, AR)
                    Wilkinson, Lance Reed (Mogadore, OH)
                    McMahon, Brian Ernest (Akron, OH)
                    Sticklen, Nicholas Lynn (Winfield, WV)
  Assignee: The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (Akron, OH)

20070174957  Body-contoured tub
  Inventor: Greeno, Scott (Shepherdstown, WV)

“We Are Marshall” DVD and copyright infringement lawsuit

The film "We Are Marshall" will be released on DVD on September 18.  Last month, a $40 million lawsuit was filed in California against Warner Brothers and others associated with the film by the producers of the 2000 documentary "Marshall University: Ashes to Glory," accusing them of copyright infringement, fraud, breach of contract, and unfair competition.

Independent Inventors Conference

The 12th annual Independent Inventors Conference will be held September 13-15 in Raleigh, North Carolina.  It is sponsored by the United States Patent Trademark Office (USPTO), North Carolina State University, and the National Inventors Hall of Fame® Foundation.  Registration fee is $100 ($90 for seniors).

Who owns your website? – Part 2

Here is an interesting recent case regarding ownership of websites.  State v. Kirby, 161 P.3d 883 (N.M. 2007).  A small business owner hired an independent website designer for $1,890.00 to design and develop a web site for the business.  A written contract between the parties provided that ownership of the copyright in the web pages was retained by the designer, but that upon final payment the business owner would be "assigned rights to use as a website the design, graphics, and text contained in the finished assembled website."  The designer "was to develop the website from content supplied by the" business owner and then place it on web space owned by the business owner to which the designer would have access.

The designer fulfilled his end of the bargain, but the business owner then blocked the designer’s access to the site and never paid the designer.  The business owner was charged with criminal fraud.  The business owner unsuccessfully argued that there was no fraud because he owned the website and therefore he could not have obtained through deception a website belonging to another, as required by the criminal fraud statute.

The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that ownership in the copyright of the website rested with the designer and not the business owner, based on the contract.  If there was no contract, ownership would still rest in the designer since he was the "author" of the work.  The court rejected the business owner’s argument that he owned the web space and/or domain name where the website resided, and therefore he owned the website regardless of who owned the copyright in the web pages.  The court said that the web page is the predominant portion of a website "that gives it life," and the domain name is merely an address.  Thus, the owner of the copyright in the web pages is the owner of the website.

This case illustrates the importance of having a written agreement up-front with website designers specifically setting forth who owns the copyright in the web pages, as I indicated in a previous post.  For that matter, you should have such up-front agreements with anyone inside or outside your business who creates content for you (e.g., graphic designers, computer programmers, marketing consultants, architects, engineers, etc.).