Re: Tunisian trademarks (Was: Open letter to Kelsey Grammer)

On Mon, 23 Nov 1998, Carl Oppedahl <carl[_at_]oppedahl.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/19/98, Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 18 Nov 1998, Carl Oppedahl <carl[_at_]oppedahl.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Sat, 14 Nov 1998, Thomas Workman <tworkman[_at_]erols.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I believe that it is in Morocco where you can fill out a form,
> > > > pay money, and instantly get a trademark, with effectively no
> > > > examination other than to insure that exact mark is not already
> > > > taken.
> > >
> > > It's Tunisia, not Morocco, but you've got the right idea. My law
> > > firm was the one that identified this approach and was the first
> > > to use it, in the Roadrunner.com case.
> >
> > So, in light of the State Street Bank case, have you tried to patent it?
>
> My view is that the State Street Bank case did nothing to change the
> law. It merely affirmed the existing law from long before. (Merrill
> Lynch had gotten its Cash Management Account patent a decade earlier,
> for example.)
>
> But no, we had not tried to patent this approach. And by now it is too
> late to do so, of course.

  To build on what Carl stated:

  USA Patent law prohibits a patent on any invention that was disclosed more than one year prior to the application for a patent. This is referred to as the "on sale" bar, since often the disclosure is in the form of an offer for sale. Recent caselaw indicates that the invention need not be reduced to practice (that is, if you approach someone and offer a widget for sale, and you have not yet invented the widget, the one year time period begins to run from your first encounter with your prospective customer).

-- 
Thomas E. Workman Jr.
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