Upon filing a patent application or issuance of a patent, a product disclosed by the patent application or covered by the claims of the issued patent may be marked either “Patent Pending” or “Patented” together with the patent number. The benefit of marking a product as patent pending is that it provides a warning that [...]
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Penalty for False Patent Marking
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Misconceptions of Provisional Patent Applications
After an inventor conceives of an invention, an application seeking patent protection may be filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The first or initial patent application may either be a provisional or non provisional patent application. The provisional patent application is described as a lower cost option compared to the non-provisional patent [...]
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What Types of Inventions are Obvious?
Inventors frequently ask whether the Patent Office will grant them a patent on their invention. The general answer is that the Patent Office will grant a patent on inventions that are novel (i.e., new) and non-obvious in light of technology existing at the time the patent application was filed. The government does not have an [...]
Interview the Examiner Prior to First Office Action
The Patent Office has continued the First Action Interview Pilot Program effective October 1, 2009 until April 1, 2010. During the examination process, the examiner assigned to a patent application typically does not hold an interview with the applicant until after the examiner renders an initial Office Action. An interview prior to the first Office [...]
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- Posted in: Interviews
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Reverse Payments
The typical payment in a patent litigation dispute flows from the alleged infringer to the patentee. The payment may represent damages incurred by the patentee to make the patentee whole and/or a licensing royalty fee if the patentee permits the alleged infringer to continue selling the patented product or method. The following case illustrates a [...]
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- Posted in: Antitrust
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Safe Harbor Provision for Divisional Patent Applications
The patent statute (35 USC § 121) indicates that divisional patent applications cannot be receive a double patenting rejection based on claims of a parent application. This is commonly known as the safe harbor provision of Section 121. The following case illustrates whether the safe harbor applies to a patent application that is a divisional [...]
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Updated Look Is Obvious
During examination of a patent application, the examiner and patent applicant may disagree on various issues such as claim interpretation, patentable subject matter, written description, novelty, obviousness, etc. After the examiner has rejected the patent application twice, the patent applicant may appeal the matter to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (“BPAI”). The following [...]
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- Posted in: Obviousness
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Product By Process Claims
One of the most important sections of a patent specification is the claims. The reason is that the claims define the metes and bounds of patent protection afforded under the patent. For example, the scope of patent protection afforded under a product claim that recites elements a, b and c extends only to a product [...]
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- Posted in: claim construction
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Specific Intent Required for Active Inducement of Patent Infringement
Liability for patent infringement may arise directly or indirectly. For direct patent infringement liability, a defendant makes, uses, sells, offers for sale or imports a product that infringes a patent. For indirect patent infringement liability, the accused actor is assisting someone else in directly infringing a patent either by inducing them to infringe or by [...]
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Product By Process Claims
The claims define the metes and bounds of patent protection afforded under a patent. The claims can be drafted in many different ways. For example, the claims can recite a method, an apparatus or a product by process. A method claim recites various steps which if performed would infringe the patent. An apparatus claim recites [...]
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Reducing Scope of Doctrine of Equivalents Via Ensnarement Defense
As previously discussed in “Avoiding Patent Infringement,” the claims define the metes and bounds of patent protection afforded under a patent. The claims can be infringed either literally which means that the alleged infringer practiced the claimed invention without any deviation. If the alleged infringer practiced a variation of the claimed invention, then liability for [...]
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- Posted in: Doctrine of Equivalents
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What types of inventions are eligible for patent protection?
There are four general categories of inventions that are eligible for patent protection. Specifically, they are processes, machines, manufactures and compositions of matter or their improvements. The following case, In re Ferguson, 2007-1232 (Fed. Cir. 2009) involves the issue of whether an invention to a new process is eligible for patent protection. The case makes [...]
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- Posted in: Patent Eligible Subject Matter
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What Types of Inventions are Obvious?
Inventors frequently ask whether the Patent Office will grant them a patent on their invention. The general answer is that the Patent Office will grant a patent on inventions that are novel (i.e., new) and non-obvious in light of technology existing at the time the patent application was filed. The government does not have an [...]
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- Posted in: Featured, Obviousness
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