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

On 11/25/98, Thomas Workman <tworkman[_at_]erols.com> wrote:
>
> 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...

And in many countries other than the US, there is no "one year" period. The patent application has to be filed *prior to* any public divulgation of the invention. See "Time limits for filing patent applications" at:

   http://www.patents.com/tl/

Carl Oppedahl
<carl[_at_]oppedahl.com> Received on Thu Nov 26 1998 - 16:10:27 GMT