June 2025
Patent attorney and Indiana Super Lawyer ® Charles Meyer kindly treated us to an update of his 2019 presentation on intellectual property: patents, trademarks, and copyrights. It’s not unusual for 60-80% of a company’s property to be intangible. So if you are starting a business, take the advice of Shark Tank : create a business plan and protect the company’s intellectual property. Patents If you want a patent, the most important thing to remember is: file a patent application within one year of the date your invention is first disclosed to the public . If you wait any longer, you cannot get a patent for that invention. The two most prevalent kinds of patents are utility patents (for new, nonobvious, and useful things or methods) and design patents (for the ornamentation of manufactured things; ex. Coca Cola bottle design). Patents for biological plants are also available. There are two routes to getting a utility patent. An...