Wasilla is a city in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, United States and the fourth-largest city in the state. It is located on the northern point of Cook Inlet in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley of the southcentral part of the state. The city's population was 5,469 at the 2000 census; the Census Bureau estimated that it had risen to 10,256 in 2008. Wasilla is the largest city in the borough and a part of the Anchorage metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 364,701 in 2008. Established at the intersection of the Alaska Railroad and Old Carle Wagon Road, the city prospered at the expense of the nearby mining town of Knik. Historically entrepreneurial, the economic base shifted in the 1970s from small-scale agriculture and recreation to support for workers employed in Anchorage or on Alaska's North Slope oilfields and related infrastructure. The George Parks Highway turned the town into a commuter suburb of Anchorage. Several state and federal agencies have offices in Wasilla, including the Alaska Departments of Environmental Conservation, Labor and Divisions of Public Assistance, Social Services. Wasilla gained international attention when Sarah Palin, who served as Wasilla's mayor before her election as Governor of Alaska, was chosen by John McCain as his vice-presidential running mate in the 2008 United States presidential election. Wasilla is named after Chief Wasilla, a local Dena'ina chief.

What is intellectual property law?

Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Common types of intellectual property include copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets. Intellectual property law involves advising and assisting individuals and businesses on the development, use, and protection of intellectual property -- which includes ideas, artistic creations, engineering processes, scientific inventions, and more.

Answers to intellectual property law issues in Alaska

A patent is a document issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) that grants a monopoly for a limited...

Some types of inventions will not qualify for a patent, no matter how interesting or important they are. For example...

In the context of a patent application, an invention is considered novel when it is different from all...

Once a patent is issued, it is up to the owner to enforce it. If friendly negotiations fail, enforcement involves...

Patent protection usually ends when the patent expires.

For all utility patents filed before June 8, 1995,...

Typically, inventor-employees who invent in the course of their employment are bound by employment agreements that...

On its own, a patent has no value. A patent becomes valuable only when a patent owner takes action to profit from...

Copyright protects works such as poetry, movies, video games, videos, DVDs, plays, paintings, sheet music, recorded...

For works published after 1977, the copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. However, if the work...

The term "trademark" is commonly used to describe many different types of devices that label, identify, and...

Federal court opinions concerning intellectual property law in Alaska