After you file a patent application, you will wait between 6 months to 3 years to know if you can get a patent. At that time, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will review your patent application and may reject your patent application. An office action will explain the reasons for the rejection. What do you do now? So, what is an office action? An … [Read more...]
After filing a patent application
After filing a patent application, the invention is now patent pending which marks the point at which it is safe to start marketing the invention. The process of patent protecting the invention has now formally started. Browse related articles below.
Patent Pending: Definition, Benefits and Warning
Inventors and competitors often misunderstand patent pending. Inventors will mark their products with “Patent Pending” thinking that no one else can copy their invention. This understanding would be incorrect. Competitors might see this and ignore the patent pending notice. This ignorance would be foolish. Patent pending notice is something you’ll come across in … [Read more...]
Pros and cons of filing a continuation-in-part application
Bottom line The pro for filing a continuation-in-part application is lower downstream costs. The cons are a shortened patent term and also your prior arguments and statements made in the parent application/patent can and will be used against you to narrowly interpret the claim language in a patent maturing from the subsequent continuation-in-part application. To discuss … [Read more...]
Enablement easier to satisfy for broader patent claims
With patents, everything starts and ends with the claims which means that the specification, the arguments presented during prosecution and all of the patent applicant’s efforts affect the language of the claims. For example, a patent specification must enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention as recited in the claims. Alcon Research Ltd. v. … [Read more...]
Does a restriction requirement disclaim non-elected species?
Below, Advantek Marketing, Inc. v. Shanghai Walk-Long Tools Co., LTD (Fed. Cir. August 1, 2018) is discussed in terms of whether the scope of design patent protection is affected when electing a species in response to a restriction requirement. However, the context of the parties and how the litigation arose provides insights on how U.S. companies might better protect … [Read more...]
Claim of priority to an earlier filed patent application
What is a claim of priority? A claim of priority is a reference in a later filed patent application back to an earlier filed patent application. What is the benefit? The claim of priority allows the later filed application to enjoy a priority date as of the filing date of the earlier filed patent application and not the actual filing date of the later filed patent … [Read more...]
Obviousness is based on path PHOSITA would have taken
A factor in analyzing obviousness Obviousness is based, in part, on the path a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA) would have taken based on the prior art, and not the path the inventor actually took. In the following case, the patent owner took a commonly known path to produce a stable version of a known drug compound but in taking that path created a new … [Read more...]
Teach away argument for patentability requires more than a preference away
Meiresonne v. Google (Fed. Cir. March 7, 2017) stands for the proposition that a proper teach away argument to defeat of obviousness rejection requires a discussion in the prior art of more than just a preference away, disparagement or being critical of the combination suggested by the examiner to make the claimed invention. A proper teach away argument requires that the prior … [Read more...]