Source: http://patents.hdp.com/?cat=73
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 17:06:32+00:00

Document:
Provisional patent rights have nothing to do with provisional patent applications, and instead refer to the rights that the owner of a published patent application has to recover a reasonable royalty for pre-issuance infringements. 35 USC §154(d) provides that a patent includes the right to obtain a reasonable royalty from any person who, after the publication of the application infringes a claim of the published application, PROVIDED THAT: (1) the infringer had actual notice of the published patent application (35 USC §154(d)(1)(B)), and (2) the invention as claimed in the patent is substantially identical to the invention as claimed in the published patent application (35 USC §154(d)(2). Provisional rights also apply to PCT applications, but if the PCT application was not published in English, the provisional rights only apply after the USPTO receives a translation of the publication in the English language.
Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolution, Senate, S. 1948, Cong. Rec. S14719 (Nov. 17, 1999), available at http://thomas.loc.gov.
It is generally assumed that this notice is similar to the notice requirement of 35 U.S.C. §287(a). Based on §287(a) cases, the actual notice must identify the patent application serial number and the activity that is within the scope of the claims, and should include a proposal to abate the activity.
When a published patent application’s claims are amended such that their scope is changed, the patent is no longer “substantially identical” to its application. See Icon Outdoors, LLC v. Core Res., Inc., Civil Action No. RDB-11-2967, 2013 WL 2476392, at *14-15 (D. Md. June 7, 2013) (holding that a change from “waterproof or windproof” to “waterproof and windproof” in a claim describing the material of “the upper portion of [a] hunting garment” was a “substantive change” precluding the application of § 154(d)). “Although not a per se rule, ‘it is difficult to conceive of many situations in which the scope of a rejected claim that became allowable when amended is not substantively changed by the amendment.’” Pandora Jewelry, LLC v. Chamilia, LLC, Civil No. CCB-06-600, 2008 WL 3307156, at *9 (D. Md. Aug. 8, 2008) (quoting Laitram Corp. v. NEC Corp., 163 F.3d 1342, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 1998)).
Thus, the applications for the ‘069 and ‘639 patents are not “substantially identical” to the patents issued, and §154(d) simply does not apply.
In Parker-Hannifin Corp. v. Champion Labs., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61108 (N.D. Ohio 2008), Champion admitted that its oil filter infringed Parker’s Patent No. 6,983,851 and further admitted that it owed a “reasonable royalty” to the patentee for pre-issuance sales based on the provisional rights of 35 U.S.C. 154(d). Because of these admissions, the court was left only to consider the amount of reasonable royalty. The court found the reasonable royalty to be $2.00 per unit by applying the Georgia Pacific factors and to a hypothetical negotiation, awarding a total of $203,524 on these provisional rights. However the Court did not address how the hypothetical negotiation is altered based on the fact that the right infringed was only provisional.
(3) Time limitation on obtaining a reasonable royalty.— The right under paragraph (1) to obtain a reasonable royalty shall be available only in an action brought not later than 6 years after the patent is issued. The right under paragraph (1) to obtain a reasonable royalty shall not be affected by the duration of the period described in paragraph (1).
(A) Effective date.— The right under paragraph (1) to obtain a reasonable royalty based upon the publication under the treaty defined in section 351(a) of an international application designating the United States shall commence on the date of publication under the treaty of the international application, or, if the publication under the treaty of the international application is in a language other than English, on the date on which the Patent and Trademark Office receives a translation of the publication in the English language.
(B) Copies.— The Director may require the applicant to provide a copy of the international application and a translation thereof.

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