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Trade Winds: Federal Government Announces Next Commercial Offshore Wind Leasing Auction

Client Alert | 1 min read | 12.18.13

On December 17, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced a 60-day public comment period  for a proposed auction process designed to open nearly 80,000 acres offshore Maryland for commercial wind energy leasing. The announcement, which follows recent auctions of 112,000 acres offshore Virginia and 164,000 acres offshore Rhode Island and Massachusetts, is the latest in a series of actions by the federal government designed to increase wind and other renewable energy production and to facilitate the development of new clean technology industries generally (previously discussed here, here, here, and here).

Insights

Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25

Design Patent Application Drawings & Prosecution History Must Be Clear (Merely Translucent Won’t Suffice!)

Design patents offer protection for the ornamental appearance of a product, focusing on aspects like its shape and surface decoration, as opposed to the functional aspects protected by utility patents. The scope of a design patent is defined by the drawings and any descriptive language within the patent itself. Recent decisions by the Federal Circuit emphasize the need for clarity in the prosecution history of a design patent in order to preserve desired scope to preserve intentional narrowing (and to avoid unintentional sacrifice of desired claim scope)....