The Federal Circuit basically confirmed in In re Cellect that terminal disclaimers can knock out patent term adjustment (PTA). If you have patent term extension (PTE) and you filed a terminal disclaimer to overcome an obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) rejection, you can get the PTE term tacked onto the disclaimed date. However, in the case of PTA, the court says that PTA term gets added to the life of the patent first and then the terminal disclaimer goes into effect so that you have disclaimed the PTA term and any extended term such that the two patents now expire on the same date regardless of the PTA. In effect, terminal disclaimers may knock out PTA term.
Play EpisodeThe technological improvement test is used by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to determine the issue of subject matter eligibility. Of all the tests for a showing of something more or practical application – machine transformation, machine implementation, data transformation – technological improvement is probably the most popular and oft-used by applicants because it has the clearest standards. As you probably already know, the technological improvement test used by the USPTO looks for a technological problem for which there is a technological solution and the claims recite a technological improvement therefor.
Play EpisodePetitions are sort of like pleading practice before the Office over issues that do not necessarily have to do with the patentability of your claims. The Office of Petitions will receive your petition where it will be decided on not the examiner, but an administrator in the petitions office. As a rule of thumb, objections from the Office are petitionable and rejections from the Office are appealable. Rejections under Sections 101, 102 and 103 involve questions of law and therefore have to be appealed to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) as an ex parte appeal. But for everything else, if you have a dispute with the examiner that’s not going anywhere and the examiner isn’t withdrawing the objection – you petition those matters.
Play EpisodeWhy should U.S. attorneys bother with learning European Patent (EP) practice? Because every once in a while, your client is going to ask you about IP portfolio management in other countries, whether you have a client that is already a multinational entity or thinking about expanding across borders. It’s not uncommon for a client to ask you about practicing before the European Patent Office (EPO) versus, for example, one of the Asian or Latin American patent offices, in which case they will more likely talk directly to a foreign associate. The reason for this is because of English. You speak it. They also speak it. So, your client could very well ask you to review documents coming out of Europe to save money (if they have not already). Because of this, it’s important to know some of the basics of European prosecution practice. In this episode, let’s talk about Extended European search reports (EESRs), which basically means an EP office action.
Play EpisodeAfter June 8, 1995, U.S. utility patent terms changed from 17 years from issuance to 20 years from filing to harmonize with the rest of the world under the Uruguay Rounds Agreement Act. For design patents, after the Hague Agreement on May 13, 2015, design patent terms changed to from 14 years from issuance to 15 years from the date of grant/issuance. In the United States, patent term is subject to the following: patent term adjustment (PTAs), patent term extension (PTEs) and terminal disclaimers. While many other countries also have PTAs and PTEs, terminal disclaimer practice exists only in the United States because we are the only country that issues judicially-created, non-statutory double patenting rejections.
Play EpisodeThe United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) would like public comments on how to update the 2019 Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance. The agency is also seeking comments on how to improve the robustness of the patent system overall. This article/video is in (unofficial) response to both of these requests for comments. The current mess surrounding subject matter eligibility in the United States is an offspring of a much deeper problem in patent law, which is that there is practically no standardization in patent practice. In medicine, U.S. doctors are trained by standardized practices through rotations and residency programs such that when they begin practicing, a doctor graduating in Florida will not practice medicine vastly different from a doctor graduating from medical school in California, for instance. Instead, the idea is that all the graduates will approach medical treatment in a standardized way so that the public has a lot more faith in the medical community.
Play EpisodeGlobal IP Counselors is dedicated to protecting the intellectual property rights of applicants around the world. We believe in drafting disclosures that are enabled to support a broad range of claim scopes at the onset of prosecution, placing the applicants’ claims strongly in position for future assertion. In order to provide world class IP service, we maintain a full understanding of the ongoing changes to the USPTO’s agency guidelines as well as precedential rulings from the US courts. Join Wen Xie at the IP Practice Vlogs as she discusses the newest IP practice insights before the USPTO and the Federal Circuit.