Source: https://www.iliplaw.com/americaisrael_patent_law/inventorship/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 09:17:11+00:00

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This is the third installment discussing a situation in which patent practitioner X listed himself as an inventor on an application he drafted and filed on behalf of Z, assigned all his rights to Z, and was then asked by by Y, the practitioner to whom the case was subsequently transferred, to (a) confirm in writing that X was not an inventor with respect to a new set of claims that Y planned to file in the USA (discussed here), and (b) confirm that X had no "demands" against Z (discussed here). Today we'll look another aspect of Y's letter to X.
(b) in any event, an orech patentim shall not record or request to be listed as a joint inventor with his client regarding an invention with which he deals, if the client did not agree to this in writing before the filing of the patent application, and there is an absolute prohibition against an orech patentim to be listed as a joint inventor against the will of his client [translated from the Hebrew text]"
Ignoring for the moment the substance of these two specific clauses, the reference to this “Ethics Code” is baffling, because it has no legal force. The Association of Patent Attorneys In Israel is a non-profit association of the same sort as the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, the National Geographic Society, and the Boy Scouts of America. The APAI is not established by statute, Israeli patent practitioners are not required to be members of the APAI, and the APAI’s rules apply only to APAI members. Which, it should be mentioned, X is not. The maximum penalty for violating one of those rules is expulsion from the association; violation of an APAI rule per se carries no civil or criminal penalties.
The cited “rules” are also substantively unwise, for at least two reasons. First, as discussed in the first post in this series, getting inventorship right matters for US patents. And, being the single most important market for the vast majority of Israeli entities that do business outside of Israel, the US remains the single most important patent jurisdiction for such entities. But it’s not hard to picture situations in which adherence to the cited rule 12A(b) could potentially jeopardize a client’s US patent application. A better default rule would be that, absent an agreement to the contrary, if a practitioner finds he’s an inventor, his client automatically owns the practitioner’s portion of the invention and the right to patent it, and the practitioner isn’t entitled to additional remuneration beyond his already agreed-upon fee. In other words, exactly what X did in the situation he encountered.
Second, association rule 8(d) would seem to preclude practitioners taking an ownership stake in their clients’ businesses. But services-for-equity is a well-established, if risky, way for practitioners to assist clients who are short on cash but have potentially winning ideas. Indeed, the AIPLA will be including a session at its spring meeting in May on the topic of “Startup Stock Ownership: How to Contribute IP for Equity”. Rule 8(d) doesn’t appear to be in the interest of clients. Or risk-taking patent practitioners.
So given all that, why would Y refer to irrelevant rules – particularly when he himself even professed to be aware of the requirements of US law regarding the listing of inventors, writing to X, “As I'm sure you know, US law requires the mention of the inventors of the claims on record…”?
Another possibility is this: for more than 20 years, there’s been a push by some patent practitioners in Israel to forbid all patent practitioners from listing themselves as inventors on applications they draft for clients, or from holding an ownership interest in patents they draft for others. That still hasn’t come to fruition, but maybe Y is one of those in favor of such a change, and Y confused his aspirations with reality.
And then there’s the prosaic reason, common to all three parts of Y’s letter: he could bill for it.
Yesterday I wrote about an interesting situation: patent practitioner X listed himself as an inventor on an application he drafted and filed on behalf of Z, and assigned all his rights to Z. X was asked by Y, the practitioner to whom the case was subsequently transferred, to confirm in writing that X was not an inventor, at least with respect to a new set of claims that Y planned to file in the USA. In this post I discuss another statement that Y asked X to make.
This is a bizarre statement, and it took me a while to puzzle it out, but as best as I can determine, Y has confused two different situations. But before continuing, some background on Israel law is in order.
Under Israel law, the inventor of an invention is the owner of that invention and the right to patent it. However, if the inventor was employed by someone else, and he developed the invention during the period of his employment and as a result of that employment, then the default setting under the statute is that the employer owns the invention and the right to patent it; the employer and employee can contract around this provision. Usually, in cases where there’s no explicit contractual provision about ownership of employee-developed IP, the contract is also silent about compensation to the employee-inventor for inventing things, so the statute establishes an ad hoc committee that the Patents Commissioner assembles as needed to determine how much, if any, compensation the employee-inventor is entitled to, in the event the employer and employee-inventor can’t reach an agreement on that question on their own.
Typical employment agreements in Israel in companies where things are being invented explicitly stipulate that the company owns all IP developed by the employee as a result of his employment, including inventions and patents on those inventions. Until a few years ago it was assumed that the general compensation provisions of the employment agreement also covered compensation for IP developed in this setting. But then the ad hoc committee got involved in a few cases and decided that in these situations, employees may be entitled to compensation beyond their normal compensation. Needless to say, this threw a wrench into the works, as companies that thought they had paid everything they needed to pay for their IP were now faced with the possibility of further, unanticipated payouts to employees of valuable inventions. Most companies have, presumably, addressed this by modifying the language of their employment contracts.
In the context of an employer-employee relationship, Y’s statement makes sense: notwithstanding the assignment from X to Z, which assures Z ownership of the invention and the patents on it, Z wants to be sure that X won’t approach the ad hoc committee seeking additional compensation. Or at least, Y told Z that Z wants to be sure of that. Because, you know, he’s a senior guy at a Big Office, so he must know what he’s doing. And he can bill time, and look great in front his new client, for giving this advice, and for writing a letter to X about it.
The problem here is that X is not an employee of Z. The relationship between X and Z is that of outside contractor – he’s a third party supplier just like the parties that provide Z with printer ink or toilet paper or hot lunches to Z’s employees. And therefore the question of the ad hoc committee never arises: X assigned his rights to Z, he sent Z his bill and Z paid, and X can’t have any claims against Z before the ad hoc committee, because that provision of the statute only applies in the context of an employer-employee relationship.
But Y still gets to bill Z for giving this advice and writing to X about it.
This is the first of several posts about an interesting situation.
X is a patent practitioner here in Israel. He’s a very smart guy, and he’s one of the straightest arrows I know.
Y is also a patent practitioner here in Israel. Y holds a senior position in a Big Office, so he must be good. Right?
I’ve seen X at work with inventors/clients, and he’s absolutely first-rate at helping inventors think about what they’ve invented, how they might characterize it, and what additional lab or field work they should before filing do to help bolster their patent applications. In X’s discussions with his clients, he often makes suggestions that ultimately result in claims that, for purposes of US law, require X to be listed as an inventor.
Now, in those situations, X could just leave himself off the inventorship list a priori, and probably no one would be the wiser. But, shockingly, X cares that his client’s US patents be valid and enforceable. So when X finds that’s he’s an inventor, he (a) lists himself as an inventor, and (b) assigns to his client all of his current and downstream rights in the invention and the patent application. X does not request additional remuneration for (b).
X prepared and filed a first patent application for client Z, a relatively large organization. X found he was an inventor, so he informed the other inventors and Z accordingly, listed himself as an inventor, and assigned all his rights to Z. Then, as sometimes happens in large organizations, after the application was filed, there was a change in the gatekeeper/dispatcher at Z who decides where to dole out the work for patent applications (yes, “dole out” is the correct term to use here, but that’s a subject for a different blog post). New gatekeeper/dispatcher (“NGD”) decided that the case that X had worked on with the other inventors needed to be transferred to a Big Office. So he transferred responsibility of the case away from X to a Big Office, specifically to the Big Office with which Y is associated. The fact that NGD did so just shows that’s he’s not subject to oversight, but that’s also a discussion for a different blog post.
X never got an answer to his very logical question. Instead, Y contacted X directly – on Big Office stationery, no less! – provided a set of claims that Y said were to be used for a filing in the USA, and asked X to (1) review the claims and confirm that X isn’t an inventor, and (2) confirm that X had “no demands of any kind toward my client [i.e., Z] regarding the above-identified patent application”.
2.My client further notes that while you point out that you have assigned your rights, you have not confirmed as requested that you have no demands of any kind toward my client in respect of the above-identified patent application. My client requires your positive confirmation of this fact.
Since a delay in putting the record straight may damage my client that is exploring its future activities in respect of this patent application, I look forward to receiving your prompt response.
There are several things worth commenting on here. Today we'll discuss one of them.
As noted, X assigned all his rights to Z. So his being listed as an inventor has no bearing on Z’s rights. That being the case, why is Y insistent not only that X be removed from the list of inventors, but that X agree that his name be removed? If X is an inventor of at least one of the claims, then he needs to be listed as such in order to comply with US law, and if he’s not an inventor, then he shouldn’t be listed. But either he is or he isn’t – it’s an objective inquiry. Thus, if in Y’s professional opinion, X is not an inventor of any of the claims, then as the now-agent for this application, it’s Y’s duty to take X’s name off the list of inventors, and X’s own view doesn’t figure into the calculus. Similarly, if Y thinks X is an inventor of some of the claims, then it’s necessary to leave X’s name among the inventors, and X’s view is irrelevant. Either way, why bother asking X about whether or not he himself thinks he’s an inventor?
Moreover, the patent application in question has been published and X’s name appears among the listed inventors (though Z is listed as the applicant). Removing X’s name at this point in time will therefore be a flag later on that there’s a question about the inventorship. So if a US patent is eventually obtained, an attempt is made to enforce or license that patent, and X isn’t listed as an inventor, someone’s likely to start asking about X’s role as an inventor. If it turns out that X’s name was deliberately removed, notwithstanding his being an inventor, that doesn’t bode well for Z. At the very least, it’s additional litigation costs or a lower licensing value. On the other hand, if X’s name is retained, who’s going to know? The lower risk for Z at this point is to leave things as they are.
Furthermore, if Y believes X is an inventor on some claims but not others, he can easily solve his “dilemma” by cancelling those claims on which X is an inventor. That will provide a legitimate reason to remove X’s name, and the reason for removal of X’s name can even be made part of the record. (Of course, if any of those claims are later re-inserted, X will have to be added back to the inventorship list, but again, with an assignment to Z in place, this won’t affect Z’s rights). That, in fact, sounds like it’s the case here. But it doesn’t explain Y’s insistence that X confirm he’s not an inventor on those claims.
Bottom line: it appears that Y has convinced Z that X’s being listed as an inventor is an issue, when it’s not an issue, and when putting inventorship into play could prove deleterious to Z’s interests; and that it's critical that X provide his opinion that he is not an inventor, when that opinion is irrelevant.
But convincing Z of this gives Y additional billing. And if Y is the type who needs ego-stroking, it does that too.
The hottest story in Israeli biotech in 2017 was the August acquisition of Kite Pharma by Gilead Sciences for 11.9 billion dollars, and the announcement in October of FDA approval of the leading drug candidate that Gilead obtained in the purchase, Axicabtagene Ciloleucel, which is being marketed under the name Yescarta for the treatment of large B-cell lymphoma.
Almost as hot a story, at least in the Hebrew press, was the ensuing (and still ongoing) legal battle between two of the academic scientists involved in the development of the technology that was the subject of the deal. And herein lies a tale that illustrates the sometimes huge difference between coming up with a good idea, and translating that idea into a commercial product, particularly in the biotech area.
What Kite developed, and what Gilead was keen on, was T-cell (lymphocyte) therapy for fighting cancer. The idea is to take a patient’s own T-cells and to genetically modify them so that they produce proteins that cause them to bind specifically to cancer cells and, upon such binding, attack the cancer cells. The modified T-cells are then reintroduced into the patient. The T-cells will now target the cancer, ideally without targeting the patient’s other cells, and without eliciting an immune response against the T-cells themselves (since the patient’s immune system recognizes those T-cells as its own). Videos illustrating the two platforms Kite is developing can be seen here.
The genesis for this theory goes back to the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, when Professor Zelig Eshhar of the Weizmann Institute had the idea if one could modify lymphocytes to produce particular proteins, one could target cancer cells with those T-cells. The first student who demonstrated proof-of-concept was Gidi Gross, although over the years a number of people in the Eshhar lab, among them my wife, worked on such targeting.
The ownership of the three patents has an interesting history. As with all patent applications originating at Weizmann, they were originally assigned to Yeda Research & Development Company Ltd., Weizmann’s tech transfer company. Yeda in turn licensed the patents to Baxter, but after a year or so without positive results, Baxter gave up. Yeda also assigned a one-third right in two of the applications to the NIH, which ostensibly reverted back to Yeda (although assignment record at the USPTO doesn’t seem to clearly reflect this). Yeda then offered to sell its rights in the patents to the inventors. Eshhar, Waks and Gross acted on the offer; Schindler chose to not to buy into the patent on which he was named as an inventor. So in 2004, assignments from Yeda to the three inventors were recorded at the USPTO (including a waiver of interest statement from Schindler). In August, 2011, the remaining two inventors assigned their rights to Eshhar, and in 2013, he assigned his rights in the patents to Cabaret Biotech Ltd., a company owned by him. Cabaret then licensed the patents to Kite Pharma.
According to the Hebrew press, Zelig Eshhar made about 71 million dollars as a result of the sale of Kite Pharma, most of it in the form of stock. At which point Gidi Gross filed suit, claiming he is owed 15% of that $71 million. Last week, Zelig’s lawyers fired back, saying that Dr. Gross was not only fully compensated but given more than his financial due by Zelig.
As the Israel court system is notoriously slow, I don’t expect a resolution of this matter for several years. But living in Rehovot and having not only a spouse but friends I see regularly who worked in the Eshhar lab, the case has been a topic of conversation. And it highlights the disconnect many people between being credited with research and the financial gain that comes with successful commercialization.
In terms of credit, between 1989 and 1996, Gross and Eshhar were co-authors on at least 10 papers; two more such papers were published more recently, in 2014 and 2016. Gross was listed as first author on several of those papers. Additionally, Gross is listed as one of the inventors on the three aforementioned patents. Hence no one denies that Dr. Gross made contributions to the development T-cell targeting.
On the other hand, insofar as commercialization goes, it was Professor Eshhar who for nearly 30 years maintained the belief that modification of T-cells could result in therapy. As my wife put it, when she worked on her PhD, all the mice died. Not just hers, but those of her fellow students as well. Additionally, at the time, there were other labs working on the same general idea, and they were actually considered to be farther along in developing the technology. Yet they didn’t manage to commercialize it. Baxter tried, but gave up on the project. Yeda, unable to find any suitors, gave up on the project. But Zelig persisted. And eventually someone became convinced that despite the previous failures, this technique could work, a belief borne out by the approval of Yescarta. That’s why Zelig is making over $70 million on the deal. It’s a point that patent attorneys and entrepreneurs appreciate, but one often lost on people not familiar with the commercialization process.
The terms of the 2011 assignment from Waks and Gross to Eshhar aren’t public. It’s possible that Zelig orally promised Gidi a percentage of future profits or shares or whatever, but even if that’s so – and Eshhar disputes that such a promise was even made - it seems that the 15% that Gross now claims he is owed wasn’t set forth in a written document, since such a document would presumably have been included in the court filings, and the Hebrew press doesn’t mention such a document. The Hebrew press has reported that Yeda is entitled to about 0.2% of $71 million; clearly, while Yeda is no doubt smarting right now about having given up on this technology, the agreement setting forth the terms of the 2004 transfer of ownership from Yeda to the inventors was in writing, and Yeda has (thus far) had the good sense not to sue to try to get more than it agreed to. Oral agreements constitute agreements under Israel law, but obviously the evidentiary burden on the party asserting the existence and the contents of an oral agreement is high.
Of course, it’s equally plausible that the lawsuit is the result of seller’s remorse, and that Gross now thinks he should have demanded more back in 2011. And he may feel that, despite being credited on papers and patents, he feels he hasn’t been given sufficient credit for his role: in 2015, Zelig Eshhar was given the Israel Prize by the State of Israel for his work in the development of chimeric T-cell; Gidi Gross was not so honored.
The unfortunate part of this story is that, by all reports, Gross and Eshhar remained not just colleagues but friends long after a Gross had left the lab.
I don’t think any readers of this blog have been living in a cave for the last 25+ years, but if you have, one of the most popular comic strips in the USA is Dilbert, written by Scott Adams. The strip usually depicts life (if it can be called that) as a software engineer in a large company.
This week, one of the characters – ok, THE laziest character – Wally, says something that results in a product that makes lots of money for the company and a likely promotion for Wally. You can see the strips here, here, here and here.
Being a patent attorney, I couldn’t but help find interesting (after my laughter subsided) the fact that Wally gets credit for inventing something, even though it’s clear that it was Dilbert who came up with the idea (conception), and built the prototype (actual reduction to practice). Legally, the fact that it was Wally’s comments that inspired Dilbert are of no import: it was Dilbert who saw how two “problems” could in fact be mutual solutions for each other, and who conceived of a way to implement those mutual solutions. So Dilbert is the inventor here, and Wally isn’t. But from the get-go, Dilbert gives Wally credit, which Wally is more than happy to take.
That the strip would play out this way suggests that for all his brilliance as a comic strip writer, and, presumably, as someone who knows something about copyright (Mr. Adams has a very nice sized bank account thanks to syndication and royalties from the Dilbert strip and related books, mugs, etc.; the Dilbert site itself allows you to buy rights to reproduce individual comic strips in certain contexts), Mr. Adams has a poorer understanding of patent law. Or maybe, giving him the benefit of the doubt, he just understands common misperceptions about patent law, and puts those misperceptions into Dilbert’s world. Either way, it’s clear that people who live with inventors and patents day in and day out could be doing a better job teaching people not involved in this area how patents work and why they’re important.
Since the Dilbert strip can’t leave us hanging with the possibility of a promotion for Wally, there’s going to be at least one more installment in this story, and I envision two possible outcomes. One is that the company gets hit with a product liability suit and drops the product. The other is that the company didn’t bother filing a patent application and gets driven from the market by a cheap knock-off from Elbonia. One way or another, Wally’s promotion vaporizes.
A few months ago, a story broke about a secret program at the USPTO, the “Sensitive Application Warning System”. The upshot was that the USPTO had a program under which patent applications could, unbeknownst to the applicant, be flagged for heightened scrutiny, leading to delays in prosecution. The reasons for such flagging of the application were diverse, including reasons like issuance of the patent might cause embarrassment to the PTO. Remember the patent on “Method of Exercising a Cat”?
After being both criticized (think IRS and Lois Lerner) and ridiculed, as well as being subjected to a Freedom of Information Act request from Dennis Crouch at Patentlyo, yesterday the USPTO relented. See the announcement here.
I think we’re all glad to see SAWS going by the wayside. But would it have been so hard for the PTO to show just a modicum of contrition in announcing SAWS' demise? The announcement makes it sound like the program is being discontinued because it's now obsolete, with no acknowledgement that maybe, just maybe, the PTO was out of line in having a secret program, even back in the days before early publication of patent applications.
"And today, unlike when the SAWS program was created, most applications are published eighteen months after submission, exposing them to public scrutiny and the potential for third-party submissions of prior art."
When the obscenely misnamed “America Invents Act” was enacted in 2011, it created a mechanism for third party submission of prior art - see 35 USC §301 - but kept the language of 35 USC §122 quoted above. There's an obvious tension between these two statutory provisions, the one trying to limit the window in which prior art publications can be submitted and forbidding pre-issuance protests or oppositions, the other intending to facilitate prior art submissions, including statements regarding the relevance of the prior art to the claims.
This tension forced the USPTO into Wise Men of Chelm mode, leading to what I call the USPTO's "You-can-lead-a-horse-to water-but-you-can't-make-him-drink" approach to third-party prior art submissions: you can now provide the PTO with a prior art publication under section §301, outside the time frame listed in §122(e), and you can explain why it's relevant to a particular claim or claims. But if you include the phrase "and therefore what is claimed in claim X lacks novelty/is obvious" or a variation thereof, the PTO will bounce your section §301 submission because it contravenes §122(c).
So yes, the dead-SAWS announcement is correct that nowadays third parties can submit printed prior art, or even statements of the applicant made in a Federal Court or before the PTO. That’s an advance over the situation that prevailed when SAWS was supposedly initiated in 1994. But it’s not the case that those third parties can provide the PTO with what they believe to be the conclusions to be drawn from that prior art with respect to the claims at issue. Repeal of 35 USC §122(c) would seem to be necessary to enable that step. And given the rate at which USPTO examiners ignore the publications found in PCT searches, it’s clear that it will take a change in the examination culture at the USPTO for examiners en masse to utilize prior art publications found by others.
A Partial Answer To A Common Question: Why Is There So Much Innovation Coming Out of Israel?
One question I repeatedly hear from non-Israelis is, Why is there so much innovation coming out of Israel? It’s a question that a number of people have tried to answer, and even gave rise to a book, “Start-Up Nation”. I think the current missile attacks from Gaza, and how those have been parried, provide a good illustration of at least part of the answer.
In 1991, during the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein launched 42 Scud missiles at Israel, i.e. about one a day for the duration of the war. Despite being fired from several hundred miles away, thus providing several minutes’ lead time to determine when and where a missile would hit, each time a Scud was fired, warning sirens went off all over the country. US-built Patriot missile batteries were deployed in Israel, but their success rate in intercepting incoming Scuds was abysmal.
Flash forward to today. In the past month, Hamas has fired over 1000 missiles into Israel, from right on the border, not far-off Iraq, leaving far more less time to respond to a much larger barrage than was faced in 1991. Within seconds after launch, the fact that it’s a missile (and not something else) and its trajectory are known, and the population in the neighborhood where the missile will land is warned (via air raid sirens, television and radio notices, and a smartphone app); there are no sirens in nearby towns. According this July 13 Times of Israel article, the country is presently divided into 235 sectors for this purpose, and in the future that number is likely to double.
The warning system itself constitutes a major accomplishment, but then comes the truly amazing part: in cases where missiles are calculated to hit populated areas, an interceptor missile is launched. (If you’re my age, think back to Atari Missile Command, except this system is real.) And unlike the Gulf War-era Patriot missiles, today’s Iron Dome missile system, developed here in Israel, has been remarkably effective in blowing Hamas’ weaponry out of the sky, even as it travels at supersonic speeds. No one else has developed anything close.
Of course, technology developed for military purposes eventually finds its way into civilian applications. More importantly, when the kind of brainpower that went into developing the Iron Dome is turned to other areas, you get innovative solutions to many problems.
In the USA, the inventors of an invention claimed in a patent must be correctly identified. See 35 U.S.C. §101, §115 and §116. Failure to correctly list the inventors can result in the patent being invalid or unenforceable, although if the mistaken inclusion or omission of an inventor occurred without deceptive intent on the part of the included or omitted inventor, the inventorship listing may be corrected by the USPTO or the court, and the patent won’t be invalid. See 35 U.S.C. §256.
Given the importance placed by the statute on correct inventorship listings, you’d think U.S. law would make it easy for a party that thinks it has been erroneously – or deliberately – omitted from a patent application to have the matter corrected, but that’s not the case. If the application is still pending, an aggrieved omitted inventor can in certain circumstances invoke an interference, a judicial proceeding conducted before the USPTO in which priority of inventorship is determined. But it’s not always possible to invoke an interference. What’s a poor omitted inventor to do?
As is common in university collaborations, the YC-1 used by Park and Chun was obtained from another researcher, Che-Ming Teng, who had experience in producing the compound; also as is common in such collaborations, the researchers shared their results and pre-publications with Teng. Teng, however, took those results to a Taiwanese drug company, which without Park or Chun’s knowledge filed a U.S. provisional application on March 29, 2002 and then in March 2003 filed a PCT application claiming priority from the provisional. The patent applications identified Teng and the president of the drug company as the inventors.
After learning of the filings, Park, Chun and their assignees filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court (which eventually removed the case to Federal District Court for the Central District of California) against Teng et al., seeking among other things to have the inventorship in Teng’s pending application corrected to reflect the true inventorship. After an odyssey that included a trip up to the Supreme Court, last week the CAFC weighed in on remand, and ruled that while the question of inventorship is one that arises under the patent laws, and therefore is within the exclusive province of the federal courts, here the plaintiffs had no cause of action, because the statute only provides for a court to correct inventorship after a patent has issued. 35 U.S.C. §116, said the CAFC, does not create a private cause of action for correction of inventorship in a pending patent application. “While the question of who invented an invention disclosed in pending patent applications is a question of federal patent law, Congress, through §§ 116 and 135(a), has limited the avenues by which such inventorship can be contested”. In short, if someone else stole your invention and filed before you did, you can get your day in court – but only after the patent has already issued.
It can be argued that there’s a certain amount of sense in this arrangement: inventorship is assessed on a claim-by-claim basis, so until some claims have been granted, it’s premature for the courts to get involved in inventorship disputes (just as courts don’t issue advisory opinions). The counter to that argument is that interferences by definition involve at least one pending patent application; but then interferences are conducted by the USPTO, not the courts. What is clear is that if you’re an inventor who’s been wronged like Park and Chun, it’s frustrating to have the door to the PTO locked (unless you happened to file an application early enough to be able to invoke an interference), and to have to wait for the grant of a patent to have the issue resolved before the courts.

References: §301
 §122
 §301
 §122
 §301
 §122
 §122
 §101
 §115
 §116
 §256
 §116