March 21, 2023
The USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board recently overturned an Examiner’s obviousness rejection of a claim disclosing a specific ratio, where the cited reference disclosed a range that encompassed the claimed ratio. The rejected claim recites: An oral care composition, comprising: a soluble zinc citrate and sodium hexametaphosphate, and water; wherein the relative amounts of… Read more »
August 19, 2022
On June 29, 2022, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office surprised patent practitioners across the nation by announcing their intention to discontinue the Patent Application Information Retrieval system (most commonly known as “PAIR”) starting Monday, August 1st, 2022.[1] From this date forward, publicly accessible status information concerning any published patent application will become available through… Read more »
August 16, 2022
The lack of consistency and clarity in subject matter eligibility following the Supreme Court’s rulings in Mayo[1] and Alice Corp.[2] prompted four senators[3] to ask the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) to publish a request for opinions on the current state of patent eligibility jurisprudence in the United States, evaluate the responses, and… Read more »
June 27, 2022
On July 1, 2022, a new sequence listing format, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standard ST.26, will replace the current ST.25 standard in the WIPO and in the national patent offices of all WIPO member states.[1],[2] There is no transition period between the standards, and thus, all applications with a filing date of July 1,… Read more »
May 16, 2022
The CAFC recently overturned a district court’s decision holding that claims containing the terms “resilient” and “pliable” were indefinite. The CAFC went out of its way to indicate that a claim is not indefinite just because it is broad.[1] The CAFC instead reiterated the indefiniteness standard set forth by the Supreme Court in Nautilus –… Read more »
September 22, 2020
On September 15, 2020, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued an Advisory 1 that Notices of Allowance mailed during the period of September 9-15, 2020, may specify an incorrect Issue Fee amount. Due to a technical problem at the USPTO, most Notices of Allowance mailed between September 9, 2020, and September 15, 2020, specify… Read more »
September 08, 2020
For most patent prosecutors, the thought of having to re-argue what is believed to be a solid, well-reasoned response to a rejection for a second, third, or even fourth time, is extremely frustrating. Understandably, it is also aggravating for the Examiner to re-read what they believe is a flawed argument. In many cases, the use… Read more »
June 02, 2020
In the current climate within a first-to-file patent system, it is often desirable to file a patent application as quickly as possible. However, it is important to check whether any foreign filing licenses are required before an application is filed because there may be serious consequences for an inventor and/or applicant if a foreign filing… Read more »
May 18, 2020
On May 4, 2020, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) unveiled a web-based Intellectual Property (IP) marketplace platform “Patents 4 Partnerships,” ( https://developer.uspto.gov/ipmarketplace/search/patents), a searchable database of patents and published patent applications relating to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that are available for licensing. The Patents 4 Partnership database is searchable by keyword, patent number,… Read more »
May 18, 2020
Objective indicia (OI) of non-obviousness, sometimes called secondary considerations, can be powerful tools for addressing obviousness rejections during prosecution. The Federal Circuit frequently reminds us that “evidence of secondary considerations may often be the most probative and cogent evidence in the record.”1 But, for this evidence to be probative, there must be a nexus between the… Read more »
