Howard M. Cohn & Associates

The Law Office of Howard M. Cohn and Associates specializes in Intellectual Property and is renowned for providing excellence in both legal services and customer care. Our firm has the unique capacity to effectively service both large corporations and small businesses alike. Patents, trademarks, and copyrights are absolutely essential for the protection of an inventor's intellectual property and often require both technical and legal aptitude to acquire full protection. Our experienced attorneys have worked on immensely technical inventions ranging from computer chips to biological - based delivery systems. Conversely, our attorneys have also worked on more rudimentary designs and have successfully developed design patent applications for distinct aesthetic features.

Drawing on over thirty-five years of experience, Howard M. Cohn leads our team of legal experts and personally oversees each and every piece of intellectual property that enters and leaves our office. Translating complicated legal parlance into more understandable language is a specialty of Howard's and ensures that the client has a full understanding of the legal process. Our goal is your success and our mission is your satisfaction. Contact us now for a free consultation now!

Provisional Patents

The provisional patent application is designed to provide a one-year period to further develop the invention, determine marketability, seek licensing agreements and protect the ability to obtain international patent protection. An important aspect of a provisional patent application is the right to label the invention patent pending. Within 12 months of the filing date of the provisional application, a non-provisional patent application based on the information contained in the provisional application and any additional aspects of the invention that were developed since the filing date of the provisional must be filed.

Primarily, the process of filing a provisional patent application boils down to a fairly simple procedure. We first have an exploratory discussion with the inventor and gain a foundational understanding of the their invention. After this initial consultation, the inventor provides us with a series of documents including the drawings, pictures, and description of his/her idea. After analyzing these drawings in conjunction with the description, we endeavor to prepare a provisional patent application, which is patentable over the prior art of which we are aware.

Utility Patents

Utility patents are the most common type of patent protection, and are typically what people mean when they discuss patents. Utility patents apply to new and useful processes, machines, manufactures, compositions of matter, or any new and useful improvement of one of these. Generally speaking, if your invention does something, you should apply for a utility patent. Utility patents have been divided into three basic types: mechanical, electrical, and chemical.

The patent application process can be fairly complex and it is therefore critical that you hire a patent attorney is both experienced and qualified to handle the intricacies of the utility patent. The principal attribute of a utility patent is that it describes and claims the structure, composition, or operation of a product or process invention. In other words, it defines what the invention is and how it works.

Trademarks

A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device used in trade with goods to indicate the source or origin of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. Trademarks are ubiquitous in the world of business and include many different types of marks. For example, some of the more common types of trademark, brand names and logos, help distinguish a company's products from its competitors'. Advertising slogans, which strengthen a corporate reputation in the minds of consumers, can also be trademarked. Certification marks, which are also a type of trademark, attest that a product meets a specified set of standards.

How to trademark? This is a question that many people consider when considering some of the legal aspects of securing their intellectual property. You have developed a new product and you want to select a trademark under which you would sell the product. A trademark is a brand or name which identifies the source or origin of goods or services and usually is associated with good will which already exists or is expected to be developed when the trademark is used with the product or service.

International Protection

While the protection afforded by such legal instruments as patents is largely restricted outside the country of their issuance, this does not mean that there exists no recourse. It is also important to bear in mind that protection laws vary greatly from country to country.

If the international arena is a concern, it is highly advisory to determine your legal options from the outset.

Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patent applications are a reasonably cost way of initially obtaining patent protection throughout the world. International patent protection increases the value of your invention while maintaining the option to file in any foreign country for a period of 2½ years.