Source: http://www.717madisonplace.com/?m=201006
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 04:47:54+00:00

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Filing a continuation on the day the parent issues — co-pending??
Those were the ominous words at the end of Judge Moore’s recent opinion in Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. v. Alpine Electronics of America, Inc. et al., 2009-1544 (Fed. Cir. June 18, 2010). The defendants in the case argued that a continuation application filed on the same day that the parent application issues is not co-pending with the parent; therefore, the requirements of 35 USC §120 are not met so as to entitle the continuation application to the filing date of the parent application/patent. The argument asserted the holding of a Supreme Court case (the United States v. Locke, 471 U.S. 84 (1985) case) where the Court addressed the meaning of the word “before” when used in conjunction with a date in an unrelated statute. Since §120 requires the filing of a continuation application “before” the patenting of the parent application, a same day filing would not be before the patenting of the parent application (according to the defendants). [Listen].
The plaintiff-appellant asserted the practice of the Patent Office in recognizing continuation filings on the same day that the parent issues. [Listen].
Update: You can read the Supreme Court’s opinion in United States v. Locke, 471 U.S. 84 (1985) here: [Read].
Chief Judge Rader was questioning appellant’s counsel about the issue of deceptive intent to deceive the public during the oral argument of Pequignot v. Solo Cup Co., 2009-1547 (Fed. Cir. June 10, 2010) when he tried to use a baseball analogy to make his point: [Listen].
He later followed up with appellee’s counsel: [Listen].
I got curious and was able to locate another source of recorded Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. Here is the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Judge Moore of the Federal Circuit from back in 2006 (you might need to have RealPlayer installed to play this): Play Video.
Judge Moore is introduced at about the 7:21 minute mark into the video.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings have not yet been set for Federal Circuit nominees Judge Kathleen O’Malley and Edward DuMont. However, looking through the C-Span video archives, I did run across the confirmation hearing for Judge Prost from back in 2001. In the video, Judge Prost is introduced at about 10:23 minutes into the video with many complimentary remarks by the senators. The question and answer session begins at about 22:30 into the video.
If you are flying in to Denver for the AIPLA roadshow on the 24th of June (Judge Linn will be speaking at the event), you’ll be interested to know that a statue of Anubis — Egyptian god of the dead — will be at the airport to welcome you. The statue is at the airport temporarily to promote the opening of the King Tut exhibit in Denver on July 1st. Anubis can be found outside the south end of the main “terminal” building.
There is no truth to the rumor that the jackal headed Anubis will be appearing at the roadshow to discuss developments in the claiming of transgenic animals.
If any law student out there is looking for a note topic, divided infringement and contract illegality might make for an interesting topic. Namely, to the extent that a party argues that a contract obligates another party to commit an act that results in patent infringement via divided infringement, is that contract provision unenforceable for producing an illegal result, i.e., patent infringement. And, if the contract provision is unenforceable for producing an illegal result, can direction and control for divided infringement be established by the unenforceable contract provision?
The oral argument of the month for the month of June is Akamai Tech v. Limelight Networks which was argued on Monday. This oral argument is quite interesting — especially if you are dealing with divided infringement issues. In addition to a lengthy discussion of divided infringement, the judges were also interested in the use of “the present invention” phrase vs. the “preferred embodiment” phrase in the specification.
So far, there has been no opinion in the case. You can listen to the oral argument here: [Listen].
The judges of the Federal Circuit from time to time will swear-in to the Federal Circuit bar their judicial law clerks. One of the nice aspects of this is that you can tell the genuine appreciation that the judges have for the work by their law clerks. It just so happened that one such swearing-in ceremony was one of Chief Judge Rader’s official acts as the new Chief Judge. [Listen].
As someone who prepares patent opinions and drafts patent applications, I find the following quotations to be right on point. You might enjoy them, too.
Topliff v. Topliff, 145 U.S. 156, 171 (1892).
Exxon Chem. Patents, Inc. v. Lubrizol Corp., 64 F.3d 1553, 1563 (Fed. Cir. 1995)(Plager, J. concurring).
Sage Prods., Inc. v. Devon Indus., Inc., 126 F.3d 1420, 1425-26 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
Chef America, Inc. v. Lamb-Weston, Inc., 358 F.3d 1371, 1373-74 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
Hoganas AB v. Dresser Indus., Inc., 9 F.3d 948, 951 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
“At best, the patent and the prosecution history show that the inventors or their representatives who drafted the claims and prosecuted the patent left considerable confusion in the record about whether the claimed invention uses heading or bearing. However, it is not the province of the courts to salvage poorly – or incorrectly—drafted patent claims.
Honeywell International, Inc. v. Universal Avionics Systems Corp., 493 F.3d 1358, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2007)(Plager, J., dissenting).
BMC Resources, Inc. v. Paymentech, L.P., 498 F. 3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2007).
In re Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210, 212 (C.C.P.A. 1971).
Datamize, LLC v. Plumtree Software, Inc., 417 F.3d 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2005).
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