Selecting Your Mesothelioma Attorney or Law FirmWritten by MesotheliomaFirms.com
As with anything in life, when looking for legal assistance to claim compensation for asbestos injury you want to get best legal advice available. This is particularly true with legal cases involving an injury such as mesothelioma, where millions of dollars in compensation could be at stake. Selecting right mesothelioma lawyer could make a big difference to success of your lawsuit, and also amount of compensation you receive as settlement for your injury. The first thing you need to look for in a mesothelioma lawyer is experience. The rise in mesothelioma cases coming to light has seen a boom in number of specialist mesothelioma lawyers in operation, and these skilled professionals have built up established links to help with many aspects of your mesothelioma lawsuit. An experienced mesothelioma lawyer will have necessary knowledge, experience, contacts and resources to put together a solid case and increase your chances of success. Using an experienced mesothelioma lawyer will also enable you to check law firms' track record when it comes to success rate with mesothelioma cases. Before you make any commitment to a lawyer or law firm, you should check how many mesothelioma cases firm or lawyer has dealt with in past, and how many of these have been successful. A good, experienced mesothelioma lawyer will be happy to answer these questions for you. Some lawyers will even be able to give you an idea for figures involved with their successful cases, although they won't be able to divulge information about plaintiff for confidentiality reasons. When looking for right mesothelioma lawyer, you should also look into firm's fee structure. Many mesothelioma lawyers now operate on a contingency fee basis, which means that you will only pay a fee for legal assistance if and when you are awarded compensation. This payment structure offers peace of mind, enabling you to pursue legal action without worry of ending up with huge legal bills even if you do not get compensation for your illness.
| | "I Built a Better Mousetrap"-- Advice on Protecting Your Creation With a U.S. PatentWritten by Larry Denton
So, you built a better mousetrap. Now, how do your protect your "perfect" creation from being stolen by a Fortune 500 company? The answer lies in United States Constitution which gives U.S. Congress exclusive authority to grant patents for inventions. Patents on new inventions are not an automatic right. Instead, an inventor must apply and be granted a patent by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), an agency of U.S. Department of Commerce. The process is long, laborious and very time-consuming. How do you start tedious process? A U.S. patent is basically a contract between an inventor and government. The U.S. patent laws were written to provide an incentive to inventors to create and publicly disclose their inventions. In exchange for full disclosure of an invention, government grants inventor right to exclude others from making, selling or importing patented invention. There are three types of patents, they are: 1) utility patents which protect way an article is used and works; 2) design patents which protects way an article looks; and 3) plant patents issued for asexually reproducing plants. In order to be patentable, an invention must useful, novel (new), and non-obvious--meaning that when viewed as a whole, invention must not have been simply an obvious improvement in invention's field when viewed by one of ordinary skill in that particular field. The patent application process generally involves three steps. First, person (or corporation) seeking patent must file an application with Patent Office. In addition to including a detailed description of how to make and use invention, application must include patent claims--statements that define scope of invention which inventor is attempting to protect. Once application has been filed, a patent examiner will be assigned to review claims and rest of application. The second phase of process begins with patent examiner performing a "novelty search"--checking prior patents, and all available literature to determine whether invention is really novel and non-obvious. During course of patent application process, patent examiner and inventor (or his attorney) will communicate back and forth with one another to determine novelty and answer additional questions which may arise.
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