Kudos to you for paying attention to patent issues.

1) I would work with a patent attorney to first check A) that the patent has not lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees. (you reaching out could trigger a company to pay that fee belatedly); B) check to ensure that the claims do... Read more »

This is a very common question as these topics are not taught in school. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has a web page that addresses this issue. https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/trademark-patent-copyright

I hope that this helps. Note--just as you may have a dead... Read more »

If you had an issued Utility or Design patent and that patent expired at the end of the life of the patent, then that idea is part of what the public gets to use without paying patent royalties.

If your Utility patent lapsed as you unintentionally failed to pay a maintenance fee, then that... Read more »

You can pay an patent attorney or patent agent to perform a patentability search. Often they will tee up the search scope and outsource the search to professional searchers with lower hourly rates.

NOTE -- even after a search, your idea may not be patentable as someone may have filed a... Read more »

I am sorry about the accident that took your husband. While the patents are a part of this issue, I suspect that the prime legal arguments will be about the licenses or other agreements that your husband had with the company. This is contract law. The litigation will be primarily on contract law... Read more »

I don't use Justia to look at patents. There may be a way to see the figures but I don' t know it. You can use Google Patents to see figures and download the complete PDF. You can use https://pat2pdf.org/ to download PDF files of patents. There are many other placed to download US... Read more »

For many years, the US was a first to invent country. That changed in 2011 see -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy%E2%80%93Smith_America_Invents_Act

There is a narrow exception that if someone takes the idea of another (AND YOU CAN PROVE THAT) then the first to file will lose out over... Read more »

A market dominant company is not likely to take you seriously until you have proceeded in the patent process until at least an Office Action noting some allowable claims. So I would be sure to file the application using some form of acceleration. Usually, that is a Track One fee and petition so... Read more »

One place to start is the USPTO assignment database. While not every company registers their assignments there, it is a best practice and many larger companies are good about doing so.... Read more »

Short answer is No as at least one of these patents has expired. (one can own an expired patent and continue to seek recovery for infringement that happened before the patent expired -- but for all practical purposes, it is no longer a threat to new actions.)

You should look at Google... Read more »

I am not sure what database you are talking about as I do not use Justia to search for patents.

But in the normal course of things, a patent application is published 18 months after that application (or a priority application) was filed. So for example US20170035603 A1 was a publication... Read more »

This is going to require that a patent attorney take a deep dive on the material that you provided and the nuances of the issued patent claims. There may be a path to correct inventorship to add you as one of the inventors. If you did not assign over your rights, then being a coinventor makes you... Read more »

In order to obtain a patent, you will need to show that your pickleball is not just different from the existing pickleballs but differs in a way that would be non-obvious to a non-creative expert in pickleball design.

In order to sell pickleballs, you need to be clear of all relevant... Read more »

Not clear how they will get access to your business idea. If you mean will they be able to look at your provisional patent application, the answer is no (not unless you provide a copy). If you mean your US patent application, the default is that the application is published 18 months from the... Read more »

A US patent covers a produce while it is in the US. So if you want to avoid the US patent, you need to avoid the US. That means the product cannot be in the US and you cannot make the sale from the US.

If you open an office in Canada to make sales and import products from China without... Read more »

A patent only applies to the country that issued the patent. (There are a few regional patent system but none that include the United States and Canada so we will ignore that nuance right now).

A US patent would apply to items made in the US and exported into Canada or to items made in... Read more »

Google patents lists the expiration date of October 9, 2031 (assumes payment of all maintenance fees).

There are three independent claims. In order to infringe the claims, you need to do what is either literally in claim 1, 8, or 14 or be covered by the slight expansion of scope afforded... Read more »

Yes. For an example see https://answers.justia.com/question/2022/11/09/can-the-formula-for-a-specific-type-of-c-932358 . The '358 patent was for a form of concrete used to make faux villages for use in military training exercises. The concrete was tuned to receive the bullets so that the... Read more »

If you are aware of the material in the foreign patent (or other foreign language document) and the material is non-duplicative, prior, and material as defined in 37 CFR 1.56, you need to provide it. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/37/1.56 Whether it may be marginally annoying to the... Read more »

Your question did not contain the list. But even without seeing the list, I can warn you that some pending applications won't show up on a list. The default is that US applications are published 18 months after filing. So most applications filed within the last 18 months won't show... Read more »