Source: https://www.theiplawblog.com/page/2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 21:12:42+00:00

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In Continental Circuits LLC v. Intel Corp. et al., case number 18-1076, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in a precedential opinion, recently clarified the rules for the incorporation of a limitation from a patent’s specifications into the claims during claim construction. In the case, Continental sued Intel Corp.; its supplier, Ibiden U.S.A. Corp.; and Ibiden U.S.A. Corp.’s parent company, Ibiden Co. Ltd. (collectively, “Intel”), for patent infringement on four patents in the District of Arizona.
All of the asserted claims include claim limitations regarding the “surface,” “removal,” or “etching” of “a dielectric material” or “epoxy,” and their construction depends on resolving whether they should be limited to a repeated desmear process. The district court construed the “surface,” “removal,” or “etching” claims of the dielectric material to be “produced by a repeated desmear process.” The district court concluded that Intel had “met the exacting standard required” to read a limitation into the claims. Specifically, the district court found that the specification not only “repeatedly distinguishe[d] the process covered by the patent from the prior art and its use of a ‘single desmear process,’” but also characterized “the present invention” as using a repeated desmear process. Additionally, the district court found that the prosecution history corroborated its construction.
In reviewing the claim construction, the Federal Circuit first noted that claim construction is ultimately a question of law that it reviews de novo. Any subsidiary factual findings based on extrinsic evidence “must be reviewed for clear error on appeal.” But “when the district court reviews only evidence intrinsic to the patent (the patent claims and specifications, along with the patent’s prosecution history), the judge’s determination will amount solely to a determination of law,” which the Federal Circuit will review de novo.
The Federal Circuit then found that the district court erred in limiting the claims to require a repeated desmear process. Based on its review of the specification, none of the statements relied upon by the district court rises to the level of “a clear and unmistakable disclaimer.” Thus, absent “clear and unmistakable” language suggesting otherwise, the Federal Circuit concluded that the aforementioned statements do not meet the “exacting” standard required to limit the scope of the claims to a repeated desmear process.
The district court had also found that the prosecution history further supported its claim construction; however, the Federal Circuit disagreed that such a clear disavowal existed in the prosecution history. Similar to disclaimers in the specification, “[t]o operate as a disclaimer, the statement in the prosecution history must be clear and unambiguous, and constitute a clear disavowal of scope.” But, according to the Federal Circuit, the cited statements in the prosecution history do not clearly and unmistakably disavow any claim scope.
Next, in order to read a process limitation into a product claim, it must meet one more criterion. Generally, “[a] novel product that meets the criteria of patentability is not limited to the process by which it was made.” “However, process steps can be treated as part of a product claim if the patentee has made clear that the process steps are an essential part of the claimed invention.” Thus, for the same reasons that the statements relied upon by the district court do not show that the patentee clearly and unmistakably disavowed claim scope, they also do not make clear that the repeated desmear process is “an essential part” of the claimed electrical device having a tooth structure.
Finally, in some instances, district courts are authorized “to rely on extrinsic evidence, which ‘consists of all evidence external to the patent and prosecution history, including expert and inventor testimony, dictionaries, and learned treatises.’” However, “while extrinsic evidence ‘can shed useful light on the relevant art,’” it is “less significant than the intrinsic record in determining the ‘legally operative meaning of disputed claim language.’” Here, the district court acknowledged that the extrinsic evidence, which consisted of documents authored by the inventors, was “not reliable enough to be dispositive,” but “provide[d] helpful corroboration.” However, similar to the intrinsic evidence, those statements reflect use of the preferred embodiment but give the public no indication that they have any limiting effect. Therefore, because the Federal Circuit already determined that the intrinsic evidence does not support reading a repeated desmear process into the claims, the “less reliable” extrinsic evidence, which even the district court acknowledged was “not reliable enough to be dispositive,” does not require otherwise.
Accordingly, the Federal Circuit determined the claim terms should not be limited to requiring a repeated desmear process, and instead, should be given their plain and ordinary meaning.
Generic trademarks are those which, due to their popularity and/or common usage, have become synonymous with the products or services. Such trademarks include Kleenex, Band-Aid, Jeep, Aspirin, and Cellophane. Such marks, generally, cannot be federally registered or protected under the Lanham Act due to the marks direct reference to the class of product or service it belongs to. In other words, it fails to distinguish the good or service from other goods or services in the marketplace.
Breaking ways with this long-standing body of law, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia reversed a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) decision denying trademark applications for BOOKING.COM. The plaintiff in that action previously filed a federal trademark application for BOOKING.COM for both travel agency services and for making hotel reservations for others in person and via the internet. Plaintiff already had an international trademark registration for the same services pursuant to the Madrid Protocol.
During the USPTO’s review the plaintiff argued that the marks had acquired distinctiveness, but the USPTO refused to register the mark due to its genericness. The plaintiff appealed the decision to the TTAB, which affirmed the USPTO’s refusal. In doing so, the TTAB stated that “.com” did not impact the genericness.
On appeal, the Eastern District of Virginia first examined whether BOOKING.COM is generic. In doing so, it first analyzed BOOKING and .COM separately before analyzing them in conjunction. The Court found that that BOOKING is generic for the relevant services. When analyzing BOOKING.COM as a whole, however, plaintiff argued that the combination of the generic word BOOKING and .COM created a unique designation of the source of the services.
The Court found that when combined with a second-level domain, top-level domains, such as .com, typically have source identifying significance. The Court further held that second-level domain and top-level domain combinations generally create descriptive marks that are protectable upon acquiring distinctiveness. The reasoning stemmed from the Court finding that a top-level domain plus a second-level domain equals a domain name, which is unique and can only be owned by a single entity.
Next, the Court analyzed whether BOOKING.COM had acquired distinctiveness. Finding that the plaintiff offered sufficient evidence that consumers identify BOOKING.COM with a specific source, not just a reference to services provided, the Court held that BOOKING.COM had acquired distinctiveness, but only as to hotel registration services, not travel agency services. Accordingly, the Court ordered the USPTO to register BOOKING.COM as to those services, and remanded the matter to the USPTO to determine whether the design and color elements in two of the applications, in conjunction with the protectable word mark, were eligible for protection.
So, what does this mean? In short, it means that although a party may be unable to register its generic mark alone, it may be able to combine the generic mark with a top-level domain to create a registrable trademark. But although this undoubtedly provides some benefit, such trademark owners should heed the Eastern District’s warning that such marks will not be according broad protection.
The Trademark Trial and Appeals Board recently issued an interesting decision regarding standing to oppose the registration of trademark applications. United Trademark Holdings, Inc. filed for registration of the mark RAPUNZEL for use in conjunction with dolls and toy figures. However, after the USPTO’s examining attorney published the mark for opposition, a law professor filed a notice of opposition, alleging that Applicant’s mark failed to function as a trademark on the grounds that it is synonymous with the name of a well-known childhood fairytale character, which has long been in the public domain.
In response to the notice of opposition, the applicant filed a motion to dismiss claiming the opposer lacks standing because she is not a competitor and has not used the mark in connection with the manufacturer or sale of dolls. The TTAB disagreed, stating that “Consumers, like competitors, may have a real interest in keeping merely descriptive or generic words in the public domain.” Apparently, the TTAB was receptive to the opposer’s argument that “she has purchased and continues to purchase said goods and that registration of the applied-for mark by applicant would constrain the marketplace of such goods sold under the name ‘Rapunzel,’ raise prices of ‘Rapunzel’ dolls offered by other manufacturers.” Accepting this argument, the TTAB held the opposer’s allegations sufficient to establish that she has a direct and personal interest in the outcome of the proceeding, in accordance with the “liberal threshold” established in Ritchie v. Simpson, a precedential opinion issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
In light of the above, members of the consuming public may have a real interest in preventing exclusive appropriation of merely descriptive or generic terms by trademark owners. As such, consumers are entitled to challenge the registration of trademarks through opposition proceedings before the TTAB.
Non-statutory, or obviousness-type, double patenting (“ODP”) is a judicially created doctrine that prohibits an inventor from effectively extending the monopoly on a patented invention by applying for a later patent with claims that are not “patentably distinct” from the claims in the earlier patent. The core principle behind the doctrine is that “an inventor must fully disclose [the] invention and promise to permit free use of it at the end of [the] patent term.” See Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. v. Breckenridge Pharmaceutical (“Breckenridge”). “Prohibiting double patenting prevents a patentee from obtaining sequential patents on the same invention and obvious variants” to improperly extend patent protection beyond the “statutorily allowed patent term of that invention.” Id.
In Gilead Sciences, Inc. v. Natco Pharma Ltd., the Federal Circuit previously held that the key to whether a patent is invalid due to ODP is found in the order in which the patents issued. Only the last patent to issue could be invalid under the double-patenting doctrine. However, in two decisions issued by the Federal Circuit on December 7, 2018, the Court further narrowed the applicability of this test thus limiting the cases where obviousness-type double patenting can be used to invalidate patents.
In Breckenridge, the Court addressed a “potential double-patenting situation in which the later-filed of two related patents, which share a common specification and effective filing date, expires before … the earlier-filed patent due to an intervening change in law.” When the first patent was filed, a patent expired 17 years after the date the patent issued. When the second patent was filed, the law had been changed under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994 (“URAA”) so a patent was set to expire 20 years after the patent’s earliest filing date. This change in law caused the second patent to expire before the first patent. Applying Gilead, the district court determined the second patent could invalidate the first patent under the obviousness-type double patenting doctrine because the second patent expired first.
In Breckenridge, the Federal Circuit reversed distinguishing Gilead. In Gilead, both patents had been filed after the effective date of the URAA and claimed different priority dates. In contrast, in Breckenridge, one patent was filed pre-URAA and one was filed post-URAA. Thus, the Federal Circuit reasoned a change in patent term law should not truncate the term statutorily assigned to the pre-URAA patent, and therefore, the second patent is not a proper double-patenting reference for invalidating the first patent.
In the second decision, Novartis AG v. Ezra Ventures LLC (“Ezra”), the Federal Circuit addressed “the interplay between a patent term extension (PTE) granted pursuant to 35 U.S.C. §156 and the obviousness-type double patenting doctrine.” Section 156 “was passed as part of the Hatch-Waxman Act, ‘establish[ing] a patent term extension for patents relating to certain products subject to regulatory delays that could not be marketed prior to regulatory approval.’” However, “in no event shall more than one patent be extended … for the same regulatory review period for any product.
Narrowing the applicability of the ruling in Gilead, these two decisions indicate that patents are not likely to fall prey to obviousness-type double patenting issues when there is a change in law or a statutorily permitted extension rather than gamesmanship on the part of a patent applicant. However, these decisions do not explicitly address all open questions. For example, given the difference in statutory wording, it is not certain how courts will treat patent term extensions resulting from delays at the patent office. Will these extensions be treated the same as the §156 extension at issue in Ezra? What if a patent’s term is first extended for delays in the patent office and then further extended under §156? These questions are left for another day.

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