Kellye Teste Becomes UW Dean

This is a bit of old news, but Kellye Teste, former Dean of my alma mater Seattle University School of law is now Dean of the UW Law School, the crosstown rival. She was also my Contracts professor, and I was a research assistant for her in my first year of law school. I wish her all the best, and the UW is getting a great Dean.

Reporting of foreign accounts

There is an excellent article in the New York Bar Association Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Blog, written by Daniel Scott regarding the requirement to report foreign accounts you have signature authority over which exceed $10,000.00. The article is specifically aimed at entertainers, but if you have foreign accounts with an aggregate value of more than $10,000.00, you have only a short time to file the required reports with the IRS. As the article says:
"With the Obama administration cracking down on offshore tax havens and perceived abuses in the international banking arena, the IRS will most certainly closely scrutinize the disclosure of foreign financial accounts."
Offshore accounts may provide some tax relief, but there is the increase in overhead to comply the IRS regulations that cover such accounts.

Inventor Scams

IPWatchdog has a great run down on invention submission scams: http://tiny.cc/Got0s, remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Mr. Quin has excellent links for inventors. (The FTC link went bad: here is the good one: http://tinyurl.com/dz3keb)

Invention promotion scams work on the desire to get something for nothing, unfortunately, these scams will get you nothing for something.

We have reviewed a few of these agreements for our clients, and have always recommended that they think twice before spending any money with these outfits.

Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks, oh my!

Trademark and Copyright and Patents

Small businesses and solo inventors know that they want to protect themselves and their businesses from unfair competition, i.e., competitor's stealing your idea.

Most small business owners do not really care what you call the protection, they just want to be protected. However, what to do to protect yourself and how much it may cost your business depends upon what you wish to protect. Ideas are protected by patents, the novel expressions of ideas are protected by copyright, and letting consumers know that you made your product is at the heart of trademark. There is another type of intellectual property protection called Trade Secrets, which we will discuss in a later post.

Copyrights and Patents are congressional powers conferred upon them by the US Constitution. Article I, Section 8 reads (in part): "The Congress shall have power to

There are three types of 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;

2) Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture; and

3) Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant.

A patent allows you to prevent other people from using your idea. What a patent does not do is grant a positive right for you to make or use or import this idea. Property law is mostly about the power to exclude others from using your property, e.g., you can stop someone from getting on your property and the State will enforce this right, we call it Trespass. However, just because you own property, that does not give you the right to an income, just because you own it. Similarly, even though you have a patent, you do not have a right to a royalty payment, but if someone is using your patent ("Infringement", rather than trespass) you have the right to stop them.

Copyright protection is codified at Title 17 of the US code. Copyright protects the tangible expression of original works of authorship. Section 102 defines those works of authorship in eight broad catagories:

(1) literary works;

(2) musical works, including any accompanying words;

(3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music;

(4) pantomimes and choreographic works;

(5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;

(6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works;

(7) sound recordings; and

(8) architectural works.

17 USC s. 102(a).

Copyright does not protect the ideas embodied, only the particular original expression. And the protection starts once the original work of authorship is fixed. This includes unpublished works and works that are not registered.

Once you have a copyright, registration with the Copyright office www.copyright.gov, will provide addition protections to the copyright holder, including recourse to statutory damages. 17 USC s. 504(c). This can be particularly helpful when it is difficult to prove actual damages or when actual damages are low.

Our New Blog

Welcome to the Cloutier + Engle PLLC Blog; I am Chris Engle and a member of this great law firm Cloutier + Engle PLLC. Consisting of myself and my law partner Priya Cloutier, we are located in Edmonds, just 12 miles North of Seattle. We have clients from Edmonds to Italy, see what they have to say about us on our website. Our goal is to be a full service law firm to small businesses, with an emphasis on intellectual property. I am a business lawyer who does trademarks and my partner Priya is a Patent attorney who does litigation. While we both can and do work with clients on business and litigation matters, only Priya has passed the Patent Bar and can practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office.

We were classmates in law school and graduated together in 1997. We both went our separate ways, Priya to Connecticut and I stayed in Seattle, with a brief stint in Spokane, Washington. Nine years after we graduated and a chance meeting, we both agreed that we should stop doing what we were doing at the time and start a business together. "We are like those couples who get married after a two week courtship!" Priya often says, and it is not far from the truth. Fortunately, we not only work well together, but complement each other's strengths.

Our firm is relatively new, but between us we have over two decades of legal experience to put at our clients' disposal. For us, it was important that we connect with our clients beyond just our legal advice. This blog is part of that process, as are our "Think Tanks," small get-togethers we host, where our clients can connect with each other, share ideas and encouragement.

Thank you for viewing our blog. Future Blog topics will include some basic discussion about intellectual property, business and litigation.