Patent Marking Requirements: A Practical Guide for Practitioners and Entrepreneurs

58 questions on patent marking requirements, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Can a marking failure be cured by discontinuing the unmarked product?
• Can a notice letter create personal jurisdiction over the patentee?
• Does a marking failure change the royalty rate as well as the damages period?
• Does an infringer's bad faith affect the marking analysis?
• Does filing suit count as actual notice?
• Does the AIA's narrowing of § 292 close off every avenue of attack?
• Does the marking obligation reach purely foreign sales?
• Does the marking requirement extend to licensees?
• Do method or process claims require marking?
• How did the AIA change false marking?
• How does a licensee marking gap destroy a patentee's damages?
• How does a marking failure play out in numbers?
• How does a mixed assertion pull the marking requirement back in?
• How does marking eliminate the notice-letter dilemma?
• How does patent marking differ from trademark and copyright notice?
• How do marking and willfulness point in opposite directions on knowledge?
• How is a multi-patent marking error analyzed?
• How much can failing to mark a patented product cost?
• If a patentee never marked, can a letter still start the damages clock?
• Is marking a condition of patent validity?
• Is patent marking required by law?
• What are intervening rights, and how do they relate to marking?
• What are the advantages of virtual marking?
• What are the elements of a false-marking claim?
• What are the first four elements of a marking compliance program?
• What are the last five elements of a marking compliance program?
• What burden framework did Arctic Cat establish?
• What communication function does marking serve?
• What did Pequignot decide about good faith and false marking?
• What discipline does virtual marking demand?
• What does actual notice require under § 287?
• What does § 287(b) govern?
• What does the operative sentence of § 287(a) actually say?
• What does virtual marking done right look like?
• What evidentiary trap catches virtual markers?
• What five questions form a false-marking self-audit?
• What is the notice-letter paradox?
• What is the one-card summary of patent marking?
• What is the rule for removing "patent pending"?
• What is the § 287(c) medical-practitioner carve-out?
• What is virtual marking, and what problem does it solve?
• What must a private false-marking plaintiff now show?
• What must a valid mark actually say?
• What standard governs a patentee's duty to police licensee marking?
• What strategic corollary follows from the mixed-assertion rule?
• What three traps follow from the actual-notice standard?
• What two lessons belong in every licensing playbook after Arctic Cat?
• What two problems arise for products covered by many patents?
• What was the false-marking bounty-hunter problem?
• When may a patentee mark the package instead of the article?
• When may a product be labeled "patent pending"?
• Which patentees have no marking duty at all?
• Who bears the burden of proving marking compliance?
• Why did marking become more important after SCA Hygiene?
• Why does patent expiration deserve special vigilance?
• Why do marking failures happen?
• Why is constructive notice the prize worth chasing?
• Why must marking be substantially consistent and continuous?