Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01499/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01499-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

HOSSEIN MOHSENZADEH,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

MICHELLE K. LEE, DIRECTOR, U.S. PATENT AND 

TRADEMARK OFFICE, DEPUTY UNDER 

SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR 

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND DEPUTY 

DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES PATENT 

AND TRADEMARK OFFICE,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________ 

2014-1499

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Virginia in No. 1:13-cv-00824-GBLTCB, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee.

______________________ 

Decided: June 25, 2015 

______________________ 

MICHAEL OAKES, Hunton & Williams LLP, Washington, DC, for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by 

JEFFREY B. VOCKRODT. 

DANA KAERSVANG, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, 

United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC,

argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented by MARK 

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2 MOHSENZADEH v. LEE

R. FREEMAN; ANTONIA KONKOLY, Office of the United 

States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, 

Alexandria, VA; BRIAN THOMAS RACILLA, MEREDITH HOPE 

SCHOENFELD, NATHAN K. KELLEY, Office of the Solicitor, 

United States Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, 

VA. 

______________________ 

Before MOORE, SCHALL, and REYNA, Circuit Judges.

REYNA, Circuit Judge.

Hossein Mohsenzadeh appeals the district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of the government on 

the issue of whether the United States Patent and 

Trademark Office (“PTO”) properly calculated patent term 

adjustments for two patents that issued from divisional 

applications. Because we find that the district court did 

not err in affirming the PTO’s denial of Mohsenzadeh’s 

requests for patent term adjustments, we affirm. 

I. BACKGROUND

A. PATENT TERM ADJUSTMENTS

The patent term adjustment statute, 35 U.S.C. § 154, 

has two provisions restoring patent term to patentees for 

delays attributable to the PTO that occur prior to the 

issuance of a patent. “A Delay” refers to the PTO’s failure 

to timely take certain actions or provide certain notices to 

the patentee. 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(A). “B Delay” refers 

to the PTO’s failure to issue a patent within three years of 

the actual filing date of the application. Id. § 154(b)(1)(B). 

The statute requires the agency to extend the term of the 

patent by one day for each day the issuance of a patent is 

delayed under either section 154(b)(1)(A) or (B).

This appeal concerns only A Delay. The relevant 

statutory provision, 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(A), requires that 

a notice be sent to the applicant within 14 months of the 

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MOHSENZADEH v. LEE 3

date of filing a domestic application or the start of the 

national stage of an international application: 

[I]f the issue of an original patent is delayed due to 

the failure of the Patent and Trademark Office to— 

(i) provide at least one of the notifications 

under section 132 or a notice of allowance 

under section 151 not later than 14 

months after— 

(I) the date on which an application was filed under section 111(a); 

or 

(II) the date of commencement of 

the national stage under section 

371 in an international application 

. . . 

Id. § 154(b)(1)(A). Included among the types of notices 

due under section 132 is the notice of a restriction requirement. 

The impact of a late-mailed restriction requirement 

forms the basis of this appeal. When an application is 

filed with claims drawn to multiple inventions, the PTO 

may issue a restriction requirement, which requires the 

applicant to elect to prosecute only one of the inventions 

as part of that application. 35 U.S.C. § 121. For the 

remaining inventions, the applicant may file a divisional 

application, which entitles the invention in the divisional 

application to the benefit of the filing date of the original 

application. Id. 

After a patent is granted, the Director of the PTO 

must issue a patent term adjustment that adds one day of 

patent term for each day of A or B Delay attributable to 

the PTO. 35 U.S.C. 154(b)(1)(A). The adjustment is 

statutorily reduced for delays attributable to the applicant’s unreasonable prosecution efforts: 

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The period of adjustment of the term of a patent . . . 

shall be reduced by a period equal to the period of 

time during which the applicant failed to engage in 

reasonable efforts to conclude prosecution of the application.

35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(2)(C)(i) (emphasis added). The statute 

instructs the PTO to “prescribe regulations establishing 

the circumstances that constitute a failure of an applicant 

to engage in reasonable efforts to conclude processing or 

examination of an application.” Id. § 154(b)(2)(C)(iii).

B. MOHSENZADEH’S PATENT APPLICATIONS

Mohsenzadeh filed Application No. 09/899,905 (“ ’905 

application”) on July 6, 2001. The ’905 application included 58 claims. Though the 14-month notification 

period of 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(A) ended on September 6, 

2002, the PTO did not notify Mohsenzadeh that the ’905 

application was subject to a restriction requirement until 

September 21, 2006. The restriction requirement included four groupings of claims, each corresponding to a single 

invention. In response to the restriction requirement, 

Mohsenzadeh elected to prosecute claims 1–21 and 51–58. 

At that point, the non-elected claims were cancelled via 

examiner amendment. 

The claims Mohsenzadeh elected to prosecute issued 

on June 22, 2010 as U.S. Patent No. 7,742,984 (“ ’984 

patent”). When the patent issued, the PTO granted a 

patent term adjustment of 2,104 days for the ’984 patent. 

That figure includes 1,476 days of A Delay attributable to 

the delay occurring between September 6, 2002 and 

September 21, 2006, i.e., the time between when notice 

was due and when the PTO actually provided notice of the 

restriction requirement. 

Mohsenzadeh filed two divisional applications from 

the ’905 application on January 8, 2010. Each divisional 

application corresponded to a group of claims identified as 

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MOHSENZADEH v. LEE 5

a separate invention in the original restriction requirement. Both applications issued as patents. The first, U.S. 

Patent No. 8,352,362 (“ ’362 patent”), issued on January 

8, 2013, and the second, U.S. Patent No. 8,401,963 (“ ’963 

patent”), issued on March 19, 2013. Both patents claim

priority to the ’984 patent. The PTO granted 0 days of 

patent term adjustment for both the ’362 and ’963 patents.

C. MOHSENZADEH’S CHALLENGES TO TERM ADJUSTMENTS

Pursuant to agency regulations, Mohsenzadeh requested reconsideration of the patent term adjustments 

for both the ’362 and ’963 patents. He argued that each 

patent was entitled to the 1,476 days that the PTO delayed in issuing the restriction requirement for the ’984 

patent. The PTO denied both requests, reasoning that 37 

C.F.R. § 1.704(c)(14) provides that when prosecution 

occurs via a continuing application, any delays arising 

prior to the actual filing date of the application will not 

apply to the application that results in the patent.

Mohsenzadeh filed an action challenging the denials 

of his reconsideration requests under 35 U.S.C. 

§ 154(b)(4)(A), which provides applicants a remedy in the 

form of a civil action against the Director of the PTO in 

the Eastern District of Virginia. The government moved 

for summary judgment, principally arguing that the 

repeated use of singular nouns throughout 

§ 154(b)(1)(A)—“an original patent,” “an application”—

followed by instructions on extending the term of “the 

patent” shows that an applicant “is entitled to ‘A delay’ 

only for the patent that yielded from the initial application.” J.A. 687–88. The district court granted the government’s motion for summary judgment on two grounds. 

First, the court held that 35 U.S.C. § 154 unambiguously 

requires that a patent term adjustment apply for delays 

that occurred during prosecution of the actual application 

from which the patent directly issued, not the application 

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from which it derived priority. Second, the court held 

that the PTO’s interpretation of 35 U.S.C. § 154 was 

“reasonable and entitled to some deference.” The court 

then entered final judgment in favor of the government. 

Mohsenzadeh appeals from the grant of summary 

judgment to the government. We have jurisdiction under 

28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

II. DISCUSSION

Both Mohsenzadeh and the government focus their 

arguments on the text of 35 U.S.C. § 154. Mohsenzadeh 

argues that the statute was enacted to adjust the terms of 

all patents impacted by delays caused by the PTO. 

Mohsenzadeh contends this is shown by the language of 

the statute, which considers the delay caused to the 

issuance of “an original patent” based on the PTO’s failure 

to provide certain notifications within 14 months of the 

date on which “an application” was filed. 35 U.S.C. 

§ 154(b)(1)(A)(i)(I). He relies on the sequence of the 

pronouns in the following excerpt of the statute:

if the issue of an original patent is delayed due to 

the failure of the Patent and Trademark Office to— 

(i) provide at least one of the notifications 

under section 132 or a notice of allowance 

under section 151 not later than 14 months 

after— 

(I) the date on which an application

was filed under section 111 (a); or

(II) the date of commencement of the 

national stage under section 371 in an 

international application; 

. . . 

the term of the patent shall be extended 1 day for 

each day [of delay]

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MOHSENZADEH v. LEE 7

35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(A) (emphases added). Mohsenzadeh 

claims that delays in the issuance of “an original patent,” 

here each of the ’362 and ’963 patents, was caused by 

delays in providing notice for “an application,” here the 

’905 application. Thus, the consecutive uses of the indefinite article “an”—before “original patent” and “application”—allows delays in the prosecution of one patent to be 

counted in the patent term adjustment of more than one 

patent. 

The government responds by arguing that 35 U.S.C. 

§ 154(b)(1)(A) does not contemplate parent and continuing 

applications through use of the terms “an original patent” 

and “an application,” but rather one single application. 

The government points out that Congress expressly 

referred to both “applications” (i.e., continuing applications) and “earlier filed applications” (i.e., parent applications) in § 154(a)(2).1 This, the government contends,

undermines Mohsenzadeh’s contention that Congress 

intended to impute delays from the prosecution of a 

parent application to any continuing applications deriving 

therefrom. The government also argues that the history 

of amendment of § 154(b)(1)(A)(i) confirms that Congress 

was referring to a single application throughout. Earlier 

drafts of the statute only provided a deadline for issuing a 

notice as to an application filed under section 111(a), at 

which time the definite article was used: “the application 

was filed under section 111(a).” When the statute was 

amended to include notice for international applications 

1 The relevant language from this statutory section 

provides that “if the application contains a specific reference to an earlier filed application or applications under 

section 120, 121, or 365(c),” i.e., if the application is a 

continuing application, the 20-year patent term will begin 

to run “from the date on which the earliest such application was filed.” 35 U.S.C. § 154(a)(2) (emphases added).

 

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in § 154(b)(1)(A)(ii), the indefinite article was used in both 

provisions to indicate alternative types of applications 

that would be subject to the notification proceeding. The 

government separately argues that the PTO did not act 

arbitrarily or capriciously in promulgating 37 C.F.R. 

§ 1.704(c)(14),2 which states: 

(14) Further prosecution via a continuing application, in which case the period of adjustment . . . 

shall not include any period that is prior to the actual filing date of the application that resulted in 

the patent.

A. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment under the law of the regional circuit, in this case the 

Fourth Circuit. Fox Grp., Inc. v. Cree, Inc., 700 F.3d 1300, 

1303 (Fed. Cir. 2012). The Fourth Circuit reviews the 

grant of summary judgment de novo, “viewing all facts 

and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most 

favorable to the nonmoving party.” Fraternal Order of 

Police Metro Transit Police Labor Comm., Inc. v. Wash. 

Metro. Area Transit Auth., 780 F.3d 238, 241 (4th Cir. 

2015). Similarly, we review questions of pure statutory 

interpretation without deference to the district court. AD 

Global Fund, LLC v. United States, 481 F.3d 1351, 1353 

(Fed. Cir. 2007).

2 At the time Mohsenzadeh instituted this case, the 

quoted regulation was paragraph 12. Subsequently, the 

regulation was amended twice, resulting in the relevant 

paragraph being renumbered to 14. The district court 

order from which the appeal was taken and Mohsenzadeh’s brief refer to paragraph 12. The government’s 

brief refers to paragraph 13. We refer to paragraph 14 to 

aid reference to the current numbering.

 

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B. THE STATUTE’S PLAIN LANGUAGE 

RESOLVES THE DISPUTE

The language of the provision of the patent term adjustment statute at issue, 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(A), clearly 

shows that Congress intended delay in the prosecution of 

an application to be restored to a single patent, the patent 

issuing directly from that application. In other words, the 

term of any patent arising from a continuing application 

is not restored for delay in the prosecution of the parent 

patent’s application.

The statute’s reference to “an original patent” and later to “an application” does not conclusively show that 

Congress intended the provision to refer to multiple 

applications merely because it used “an” in the second 

instance instead of “the.” Had Congress intended for the 

period of delay during prosecution of a parent application 

to be restored for all continuing applications deriving from 

it, it would have done so expressly. We need only look to 

the previous subsection of the same statute to find an 

example of express congressional intent to address the 

relationship between parent applications and continuing 

applications, 35 U.S.C. § 154(a)(2). In § 154(a)(2), Congress provided that the term of a patent arising from a 

non-continuing application should end “20 years from the 

date on which the application for the patent was filed.” In 

that same subsection, Congress specified that for an 

application that “contains a specific reference to an earlier 

filed application or applications under section . . . 121,” 

i.e., a divisional application, the term ends 20 years “from 

the date on which the earliest such application was filed.” 

Id. Congress’ intent that the statute clearly address both 

parent and continuing applications, where necessary, 

suggests that Congress did not provide patent term 

adjustments in continuing applications based on delays in 

the prosecution of parent applications in § 154(b)(1)(A). 

See generally Bates v. United States, 522 U.S. 23, 29-30 

(1997) (noting that Congress acts intentionally where it 

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10 MOHSENZADEH v. LEE

“includes particular language in one section of a statute 

but omits it in another section”); BFP v. Resolution Trust 

Corp., 511 U.S. 531, 537 (1994) (same).

As the government argues, Congress’ insertion of the 

provision governing international applications in 

§ 154(b)(1)(A)(ii) when it amended the statute in 2000 also 

signifies that Congress did not intend for patent term 

adjustments in continuing applications to be made for 

delays in parent applications. A previous version of the 

bill addressed only adjustments to domestic applications, 

referring to “the application” in § 154(b)(1)(A)(i). H.R. 

Rep. No. 106-287, at 105 (1999) (Comm. Rep.) (emphasis 

added). Congress revised the bill so as to address adjustments to patents arising out of both domestic applications, in § 154(b)(1)(A)(i)(I), and international 

applications, in § 154(b)(1)(A)(i)(II). When it did so, it 

used the indefinite article “an” before the word “application” in both §§ 154(b)(1)(A)(i)(I) and (II). H.R. Rep. No. 

106-464, at 48 (1999) (Conf. Rep.). This later version was 

identical to the final text of § 154(b)(1)(A)(i). The indefinite article, thus, appears not to allow for reference to a 

different application than the one ripening into “an original patent,” but simply to signify Congress’ adjustment of 

the statute to account for the fact that a patent may arise 

either from a domestic application or an international 

application. Because we hold that the plain language of 

§ 154(b)(1)(A) shows that Congress did not intend to 

provide patent term adjustments in continuing applications based on delays in the prosecution of parent applications, it is not necessary to reach whether 37 C.F.R. 

§ 1.704(c)(14) is a proper exercise of the PTO’s delegated 

rule making authority under 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(2)(C)(iii). 

CONCLUSION

Because the plain language of 35 U.S.C. § 154(b)(1)(A)

does not provide patent term adjustments in continuing 

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MOHSENZADEH v. LEE 11

applications based on delays in the prosecution of parent 

applications, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs.

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