Source Law Index

Executive summary:

Most of the original source materials needed to practice intellectual property law are now available for free over the Internet. Statutes, regulations, case law, and patent office documents can be found on gopher and ftp sites around the country. Some of these materials are slowly making their way to the World Wide Web. The goal of this Source Materials section of BitLaw is to provide these essential documents at one location, with the hypertext links only the World Wide Web can provide. Each of these documents has been custom formatted for BitLaw.

A word of caution on accuracy and timeliness:

It is very difficult to assure the timeliness and accuracy of government documents that are available over the Internet. The following web pages are custom formatted documents created from source files found on the Internet. As a result, they cannot be any more timely than the files from which they were created. In addition, although every effort was made to maintain the accuracy of these documents, that accuracy cannot be assured or guaranteed. Consequently, these documents should not be relied upon as the basis for a legal or business decision. Such decisions should be based upon the advice of an experienced attorney who has utilized more reliable documentation than that which is currently available over the Internet.

The index on this page is divided into five parts:

• Treaties
• Statutes
• Regulations
• Patent and Trademark Office Documents
• Case Law

Treaties

• Paris Convention
• Patent Cooperation Treaty
• Proposed WIPO Database Treaty

Statutes

• Copyright (U.S. Code, Title 17)
  • Section Index
• Patent (U.S. Code, Title 35)
  • Section Index
  • Key Word Index
  • Leahy-Smith America Invents Act ("AIA," Sept. 2011) Index
  • Section Index Showing Patent Statute Changes made by the AIA
• Trademark (U.S. Code, Title 15)
  • Section Index
  • Key Word Index

Regulations (37 C.F.R.)

• Chapter 37 Index (Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights)
  • Part 1, Patent Regulations
  • Part 2, Trademark Regulations
  • Part 3, Assignments, Recording, and Rights of Assignee
  • Part 4, Complaints Regarding Invention Promoters
  • Part 5, Secrecy of Certain Inventions
  • Part 6, Classification of Goods and Services
  • Part 7, Madrid Protocol Filings
  • Part 10, Practice Before the Patent and Trademark Office
  • Word Index

Patent and Trademark Office Documents

• Patent Materials
  • Manual of Patent Examining Procedure
  • Software Patent Guidelines
    • Final Guidelines (121K)
    • Proposed Guidelines with Legal Analysis (82K)
• Trademark Materials
  • Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure
    • Section Index
    • Key Word Index
  • Goods and Services Classification Index (Trademark Acceptable Identification of Goods and Services Manual)

Case Law

• Copyright Cases (Index)
• Internet Cases (Index)
• Patent Cases (Index)