Source: http://www.ptab.us/2011/03/reversed-2400-networking-mulitplexing.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 10:35:02+00:00

Document:
Claims directed to an apparatus must be distinguished from the prior art in terms of structure rather than the material worked upon by the apparatus. In re Schrieber, 128 F.3d 1473, 1477-78 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (popcorn funnel claim anticipated by prior art oil funnel since the latter was capable of working on popcorn according to the function claimed); Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Bausch & Lomb Inc., 909 F.2d 1464, 1468 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (“[A]pparatus claims cover what a device is, not what a device does.”).
The Supreme Court has provided guidance on processes which have not been developed.
Whatever weight is attached to the value of encouraging disclosure and of inhibiting secrecy, we believe a more compelling consideration is that a process patent in the chemical field, which has not been developed and pointed to the degree of specific utility, creates a monopoly of knowledge which should be granted only if clearly commanded by the statute. Until the process claim has been reduced to production of a product shown to be useful, the metes and bounds of that monopoly are not capable of precise delineation. It may engross a vast, unknown, and perhaps unknowable area. Such a patent may confer power to block off whole areas of scientific development, without compensating benefit to the public. The basic quid pro quo contemplated by the Constitution and the Congress for granting a patent monopoly is the benefit derived by the public from an invention with substantial utility. Unless and until a process is refined and developed to this point-where specific benefit exists in currently available form-there is insufficient justification for permitting an applicant to engross what may prove to be a broad field.
Brenner, Comr. Pats. v. Manson, 383 U.S. 519, 523 (1966).
As the Supreme Court indicates, “[e]very independent inventor, every mechanic, every citizen, is affected by such delay, and by the issue of a new patent with a broader and more comprehensive claim.” Miller v. Bridgeport Brass Co., 104 U.S. 350, 355 (1881). And “[t]he granting of a reissue for such a purpose, after an unreasonable delay, is clearly an abuse of the power to grant reissues, and may justly be declared illegal and void.” Id. Thus, for broadening reissues, “the rule of laches should be strictly applied; and no one should be relieved who has slept upon his rights, and has thus led the public to rely on the implied disclaimer involved in the terms of the original patent.” Id. at 356.
The U.S. Supreme Court all but said as much in Webster Elec. Co. v. Splitdorf Elec. Co., 264 U.S. 463 (1924). There, a divisional application was filed approximately five years after the parent application was filed in February 1910, but before the parent application issued in 1916. Id. at 464. In June of 1918, however, an amendment was filed in the divisional application adding broader claims that were later patented. Id. at 464-65. Notably, the broadened claims added via this amendment were first presented to the Patent Office eight years and four months after the original application was filed. Id. at 465.
The Court held this delay was unreasonable, noting that the patentee “Kane did not originally intend to assert these amended claims, because he considered their subject-matter one merely of design and not of invention, and the inference is fully warranted that the intention to do so was not entertained prior to 1918.” Id. The Court noted that during all of this time, the subject matter of the broadened claims “was disclosed and in general use, and Kane and his assignee . . . simply stood by and awaited developments.” Id. This was not, however, “the simple case of a division of a single application for several independent inventions, . . . but [rather] a case of unreasonable delay and neglect on the part of the applicant and his assignee in bringing forward claims broader than those originally sought.” Id. at 465-66 (emphases added).
In reaching its decision, the Court relied heavily on equitable principles, particularly as they applied to delays in correcting errors via reissue applications, and adopted a similar two-year time limit for divisional applications. Id. at 471. Although the Court later held that Webster’s presumptive two-year time limit was dictum, the Court nevertheless “ratified prosecution laches as a defense to infringement actions involving new claims issuing from divisional and continuation applications that prejudice intervening adverse public rights.” Symbol Techs., Inc. v. Lemelson Med., Educ. & Res. Found., 277 F.3d 1361, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (citing Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Ferdinand Gutmann Co., 304 U.S. 159 (1938) and Gen. Talking Pictures Corp. v. W. Elec. Co., Inc., 304 U.S. 175 (1938)). That is, the Court ratified the doctrine of prosecution laches in Crown Cork and General Talking Pictures, but did not apply it in those cases in the absence of intervening rights.

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