Author: Young Jeon, Esq.
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Protect Your Products with Patent
While there’s innovative product like iPhone, most new products are improved versions of old products. Patent protects both. It really doesn’t matter whether your invention makes people’s lives better or not. For example, there is a famous case of a “fake juice dispenser”. The dispenser by its appearance has a tank that contains liquid juice.…
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3 Questions Before Launching a New Product
“Everyone copies!” There is often a grey area between innovation and imitation when it comes to a highly competitive industry. Nevertheless, you often hear about patent infringement lawsuits and trademark disputes. Especially in the U.S., lawsuits and other legal disputes are a serious problem for business owners. If you once get served with a complaint,…
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When to Register Trademark?
Most clients come to me after their products reached the market. In fact, that’s when you know for sure that your product has the potential to be something. If not, why invest in registering trademark? On the other hand, most big companies register their intent-to-use (“ITU”) marks months before they actually develop or start selling…
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A Legal Perspective of Trademark Misuse
This article contains fictional scenarios that include facts and legal issues that are created for an explanatory purpose. Any of those facts and legal issues including legal conclusions may not be true when applied to your case. Please seek a legal advice or counsel if you need any help. In past articles, we discussed how…
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Trademark Registration – IPfever Way
I guess you can file a trademark application yourself, which will cost a bit over $200 in government fees (for a long-term cost analysis, see https://www.ipfever.com/how-much-does-a-trademark-registration-cost/ ).Here, the worst case scenario is you get a rejection letter (called Office Action). If there’s a mistake, you can amend it. In other cases, you can probably go around the…
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Choosing a Right Name for your Brand or Product
Zara, which is a Fast Fashion brand like Forever 21, boasts that it takes only 10 to 15 days for an initial product design to reach their retail stores through international manufacture and logistics. In this fast-paced environment where a product can be copied within a few days and mass produced, a superb product design…
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How often do you Google your trademark?
How do you react to a sight of a retail store that just launched? Early adopters enjoy using a product or service before other people do, but most of the consumers tend to be a lot less passionate about embracing a new store although its sight might pop among aging stores. That is why many…
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The Hidden Strength of Walmart
Although Amazon is reigning in the online retail market, if you compare the annual retail sales figures of 2016, Walmart’s $363 billion in annual revenue overshadowed Amazon’s $77 billion. This is a meaningful success in the offline retail market where many retail giants are fiercely competing. What in the earth makes Walmart to score such…
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Amazon Suggests Branding for All
Approaching the 2017 holiday shopping season, the e-commerce giant Amazon’s stock price is heading to $1,200. Amazon.com, often quoted as “The Everything Store”, reportedly accounts for 46% of the entire online retail sales. An interesting thing about shopping at Amazon.com is that you do not particularly notice the items sold directly by Amazon. All items…
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Google vs. Uber: Case Study for the Beauty Suppliers
Lately, the automotive industry is under a fierce competition for developing autonomous (self-driving) vehicles. Automotive companies around the world, including GM and Ford of North America; Daimler, BMW, VW Group of Europe; Toyota of Japan; and Hyundai Automotive Group of South Korea, are just a few examples, and technological innovations to enable autonomous vehicles are…