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In all of our issues of the L&B Quarterly Perspective we endeavor to keep you up to date on changes in various areas of the law applicable to many businesses, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, business, tax and estate planning.  Therefore, we have compiled this special double issue of our newsletter to provide dual coverage of both a new trademark Act and a pending patent Bill -- the Trademark Law Treaty Implementation Act and the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999.

On October 30, 1999, the Trademark Law Treaty Implementation Act (TLTIA) went into effect.  This new law will make a number of procedural and substantive changes to U.S. trademark law.  In view of the TLTIA, we have devoted a substantial portion of this newsletter to some of the changes that may affect you.  We hope these articles will help inform you of some of the changes and prepare you for there implementation, as it may affect your trademarks and intellectual property assets.  Additionally, we have provided information on the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 (AIPA).  This Act is now making its way through Congress and may soon be on the President’s desk for signature.  As of this newsletter, we understand that the President is likely to sign the AIPA into law, barring any “unforeseen” amendments or riders attached to the legislation.  We hope that this article will help keep you informed of a few changes to patent law which may be around the corner.  If you should have any specific questions on the TLTIA or AIPA and how these may affect any of your intellectual property, please feel free to contact us.

Furthermore, we have provided a myriad of notes and articles on recent actions by the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration and our second installment of Tax Tidbits.  This information may not be new to all of our readers, however, we feel it is significant enough to provide as a "heads-up" and reminder.  We hope it will be useful to you and your business.

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