Reissue practice and reissue oaths are plagued by the tortured language of 35 U.S.C. § 251. Having suffered through 3 related reissues myself, I’ve often referred to this language in 35 U.S.C. § 251 as being something “other than English.” An expanded panel of the Patent Office Board of Appeals and Interferences (Board) in Ex parte Tanaka had to decide…
Mike Drummond, the Editor-in-Chief of Inventors Digest Magazine and a decorated journalist, has just joined the Board of Directors of American Innovators for Patent Reform (AIPR). AIPR, headquartered in New York, represents a broad constituency of American innovators and innovation stakeholders, including inventors, engineers, researchers, entrepreneurs, patent owners, investors, small businesses, and intellectual property professionals such as patent attorneys, patent…
Once upon a time I used to not get worked up at all about proposals for patent reform, because after all they almost always didn’t seem to go through, or even if they did what was passed was hardly what was suggested. Then, my good friend John White told me several years ago that this time patent reform was going to…
Today I am in San Diego, California at the Annual Conference of the National Association of Patent Practitioners. I will be speaking later this afternoon regarding the status of Patent Office rulemaking and providing an update of Patent Rules that were implemented over the last year, so I have patent rulemaking and patent reform on the mind. Thus, when I…