Patents Post Grant Blog

CAFC to Decide Prosecution Laches in Patent Reissue

Earlier this year we discussed the Ex Parte Tanaka decision of the Board of Patent Appeals & Interferences (BPAI) with respect to “bullet claims”  in patent reissue, now before the CAFC. On June 24, 2010, a second Board decision relating to patent reissue was appealed to the Federal Circuit (Ex Parte Staats).

Although presented in the context of patent reissue, the point of contention in Staats is actually one of prosecution laches and the application of equitable principles to statutory interpretation. In Staats, the Board upheld a rejection of a broadening reissue application as defective under 35 U.S.C. 251 for failing to include the appropriate broadening oath within two years of the original patent issuance. The Board reasoned that although a parent reissue had filed an appropriate broadening oath and identified at least one error, the continuation reissue was not entitled to rely on that oath, despite the continuity between these reissue applications. Read the rest of this entry »

Previously, we explored what types of amendments to claims under post-grant review can trigger intervening rights.

As you may recall, claim amendments in current post grant proceedings at the USPTO (i.e., reexamination/reissue) create intervening rights. 35 U.S.C. 307 (ex parte) and 35 U.S.C. 316 (inter partes) describe the impact of amending claims in patent reexamination, incorporating 35 USC 252 (relating to intervening rights in reissue applications). In essence, the doctrine of intervening rights forecloses the recovery of past damages for patent infringement if a claim is amended after issuance of the patent.

The case of Kim v. The Earthgrains Co., k/n/a Sara Lee Bakery Group Inc., 01-cv-3895 (N.D. Ill.), presented the issue of whether a change in the transitional phrase (i.e., legally operative terms) of a patent claim could trigger intervening rights. Read the rest of this entry »

Subsequent to the Ex Parte Tanaka BPAI decision (Appeal No. 2009-000234) on December 9, 2009, Judge Jose L. Linares of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey granted partial summary judgment invalidating four claims in the Zetia Reissue Patent U.S. Reissue Patent No. RE37,721 that were added in the reissue application of U.S. Patent No. 5,767,115.  The reissued claims were directed to the active ezetimibe species, which was already encompassed by the original ‘115 patent claims to a genus of hydroxyl-substituted azetidinone compounds.  As we previously pointed out, reissue patent applications do not fix all errors. Here as in Tanaka, “bullet claiming” via patent reissue is once again disputed as an error that may be corrected by reissue.

The civil action, Schering Corp. et al. v. Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc. USA et al., (Case No. 2:07-cv-01334), was filed in 2007, after Mumbai based Glenmark filed an abbreviated new drug application Read the rest of this entry »

In re Suitco Surface, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2010)

Yesterday, the CAFC issued a decision in ex parte reexamination 90/007,015 appeal (U.S. Patent 4,944,514). The decision (In re Suitco Surface Inc) is interesting in that the broadest reasonable interpretation of the USPTO was reversed as clearly unreasonable, yet that is the least interesting aspect of the case. In deciding the case, both the BPAI and CAFC applied the wrong standard altogether.

As background, the patent relates to a flooring surface for use on athletic courts, namely bowling alleys and shuffleboard. The key term in dispute being “material for finishing the top surface.” The Patent Holder insisted that the material for finishing the top surface must be defined as the uppermost surface. The USPTO countered that the broadest reasonable interpretation did not require an uppermost surface, but simply the finishing of a general floor surface (such as the lower layer of a laminate type floor). The USPTO reasoned that the term “comprising” is open ended and additional floor layers were possible.

In reversing the BPAI, the CAFC noted that:

“[t]he PTO’s construction here, though certainly broad, is unreasonably broad. The broadest-construction rubric coupled with the term “comprising” does not give the PTO an unfettered license to interpret claims to embrace anything remotely related to the claimed invention. Rather, claims should always be read in light of the specification and teachings in the underlying patent. See Schriber-Schroth Co. v. Cleveland Trust Co., 311 U.S. 211, 217 (1940) (”The claims of a patent are always to be read or interpreted in light of its specifications.”). In that vein, the express language of the claim and the specification require the finishing material to be the top and final layer . . .”

The CAFC determined that claim 1 was unreasonably interpreted based on the USPTO claim construction of “material for finishing a top surface.” However, the CAFC affirmed the rejection of claims 4 and 6 based on a broadest reasonable claim construction of the terminology “uniform flexible film.”

While the CAFC’s emphasis on specification context for reexamination is certainly noteworthy, lost in the appeal to both the BPAI and CAFC is that the broadest reasonable interpretation standard is not applicable to the Suitco Patent. This is because Read the rest of this entry »

As provided by 35 U.S.C. § 251, Patent Reissue is a mechanism by which a patent owner may correct an error in an issued patent. A proper reissue application is directed to an error that was made without deceptive intent that renders an issued patent wholly, or partly, inoperative.

Patent owners seeking reissue within two years of patent issuance are permitted the additional opportunity to broaden the issued claims, subject to intervening rights. Reissue applications filed outside this two year window may not broaden issued claim scope.

Although patent reissue allows for the correction of mistakes in claim scope, the proceeding is not a “do-over” of the original prosecution.  Important limits are placed on patent reissue with respect to Read the rest of this entry »

All hackers err… golfers know there are both appropriate and inappropriate times to take a mulligan.  When is it OK to take a mulligan via reissue?  The 3-step test to determine whether the recapture rule prohibits a mulligan in reissue has been well-established since In re Clement[1] was decided in 1997.  As set out by the MPEP in § 1412.02, the 3-step test requires an examiner to make the following determinations:

(1) whether, and in what respect, the reissue claims are broader in scope than the original patent claims;

(2) whether the broader aspects of the reissue claims relate to subject matter surrendered in the original prosecution; and

(3) whether the reissue claims were materially narrowed in other respects, so that the claims may not have been enlarged, and hence avoid the recapture rule.  {Emphasis added.}

You may recall the 2003 Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (“Board”) precedential decision Read the rest of this entry »

Section 17 of the March 5, 2010 version of S. 515 (the Patent Reform Act of 2010) makes certain curious changes to Sections 116 (Joint Inventions), 184 (Filing in a Foreign Country), 185 (Foreign Filing Without a License), 251 (Reissue of Defective Patents), and 253 (Disclaimer) that would eliminate the “without deceptive intent” eligibility proscription.  The effect of these changes would be to eliminate the prohibition against gaining access to these statutory provisions where the applicant had committed fraud on the Patent Office.

If these so called technical amendments were enacted into law applicants could  add or delete named inventors to correct an error in inventorship that was made with deceptive intent.  That is, even where the applicants filed the patent application with the deceptive intent to exclude an inventor, Read the rest of this entry »

–Procedural Alchemy–

The general policy of the USPTO is that the examination of a reissue application and an inter partes reexamination proceeding will not be conducted separately at the same time as to a particular patent. MPEP § 2686.03.  The reason for this policy is to permit timely resolution of both the reissue and the inter partes reexamination, to the extent possible, and to prevent inconsistent, and possibly conflicting, amendments from being introduced into the two files on behalf of the patent owner.  If both a reissue application and an inter partes reexamination proceeding are pending concurrently on a patent, a decision will normally be made to merge the reissue application examination and the inter partes reexamination proceeding or to stay one of the two.[1]

Where a reissue application and an inter partes reexamination proceeding are pending concurrently on a patent, the patent owner, i.e., the reissue applicant, has a responsibility to notify the Office of such. 37 CFR 1.178(b), 1.985.  See also MPEP § 1418.  In addition, the patent owner should file in the inter partes reexamination proceeding, as early as possible, a Notification of Concurrent Proceedings pursuant to 37 CFR 1.985 to notify the Office in the inter partes reexamination proceeding of the existence of the two concurrent proceedings.

The decision on whether or not to merge the reissue application examination and the reexamination proceeding or which (if any) is to be stayed (suspended), will generally Read the rest of this entry »

One of the crowd pleasers built into the revised S.515 is the ability to effectively cure mistake and/or oversight in original patent prosecution.  Such inadvertant issues can currently serve to jeopordize an otherwise valid patent.  With the Federal Circuit struggling to get their arms around the never ending saga that is inequitable conduct jurisprudence, Congress appears poised to provide some much needed relief by way of the revised Patent Reform Legislation.

For example, in Section 10 of the Bill, Chapter 25 of title 35, United States Code, would be amended by adding a new section 257 to permit the patent owner to request supplemental examination of a patent to consider, reconsider, or correct information believed to be relevant to its patent.  The Director would then have 3 month to determine whether the information presents a substantial new question of patentability (SNQ).  If an SNQ is found to exist, the supplemenatl examination would include a full examination of the claims. (not just limited to patents and printed publications as in current reexamination practices).  Once the supplemental examination concludes, the issues brought before the Office in the second examination cannot be used to attack the patent Read the rest of this entry »

– Reducing  Infringement Liability Via

         Intervening Rights (PART I)–

As reported last week, USPTO reexamination of Amazon’s “1-click patent” concluded with the amendment of the broadest claims. In response, many Internet news sources, and IP blogs decried the reexamination process and the USPTO as a failed system. Yet, lost in the hysteria and naiveté is a very fundamental concept of post-grant proceedings at the USPTO, namely, the doctrine of intervening rights.

USPTO statistics very clearly bear out that complete cancellation of ALL patent claims via ex parte reexamination, such as was conducted of Amazon’s 1-click patent, is the exceptional case, not the rule.  Indeed, as of December 2009, only 11% of ex parte reexaminations conclude with all claims cancelled. Yet, roughly 600 requests for ex parte reexamination have been filed every year since the inception of the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU). With only 11% of patents having all claims cancelled over a 20+ year period, clearly the strategy behind ex parte reexamination requests is something other than outright cancellation.[1]

Certainly, a third party requestor would be pleased with the cancellation of all claims of a patent in reexamination, however Read the rest of this entry »