Source: https://www.ptab.us/2011/10/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 10:42:18+00:00

Document:
We broadly interpret the claim language to include allowing all users to create at least one event (i.e., one or more), or change at least one event. See KCJ Corp. v. Kinetic Concepts, Inc., 223 F.3d 1351, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2000) ("[A]n indefinite article "a" or "an" in patent parlance carries the meaning of "one or more" in open-ended claims containing the transitional phrase "comprising."") (citations omitted). We do not interpret the claim language to require any two users to be able to create or change the same event.
In addition, “[u]nless the steps of a method actually recite an order, the steps are not ordinarily construed to require one.” Interactive Gift Exp., Inc. v. Compuserve Inc., 256 F.3d 1323, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2001).
see also Medichem, S.A. v. Rolabo, S.L., 437 F.3d 1157, 1165 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (“a given course of action often has simultaneous advantages and disadvantages, and this does not necessarily obviate motivation to combine.”); Winner Int'l Royalty Corp. v. Wang, 202 F.3d 1340, 1349 n.8 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (“The fact that the motivating benefit comes at the expense of another benefit, however, should not nullify its use as a basis to modify the disclosure of one reference with the teachings of another. Instead, the benefits, both lost and gained, should be weighed against one another.”).
clause. Mannesmann DeMag Corp. v. Engineered Metal Products Co., Inc., 793 F.2d 1279, 1282 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Appellant’s effort to avoid the newly applied prior art by belatedly (See FF 17) introducing an overly narrow claim construction and arguing that the claims should be given this narrower interpretation is not an adequate substitute for actually amending the claims to so limit them; when, unlike here, the actual amendment is supported by Appellant’s written description in the underlying patent application . We note that because of Appellant’s arguments to the PTO, it would be reasonable to conclude that “the claims have been amended by disavowal or estoppel.” Marine Polymer Tech., Inc. v. Hemcon, Inc., ___ F.3d ___, 2011 WL 4435986 at *5 (Fed. Cir. September 26, 2011). Although the decision in Marine Polymer is directed to intervening rights under 35 U.S.C. §§ 252 and 307 after an amendment under § 305, we deem the underlying principle to be equally applicable to an amendment under § 314 and to rejecting amended claims under § 112 based on 37 C.F.R. §§ 1.552(a) and 1.906(a).
See e.g., In re Robertson, 169 F.3d 743, 745 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (The claims were drawn to a disposable diaper having three fastening elements. The reference disclosed two fastening elements that could perform the same function as the three fastening elements in the claims. The court construed the claims to require three separate elements and held that the reference did not disclose a separate third fastening element, either expressly or inherently.).
In Ariad, the court found that the written description “doctrine never created a heightened requirement to provide a nucleotide-by-nucleotide recitation of the entire genus of claimed genetic material; it has always expressly permitted the disclosure of structural features common to the members of the genus.” Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Co., 598 F.3d 1336, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2010).
“Enablement does not require an inventor to meet lofty standards for success in the commercial marketplace. Title 35 does not require that a patent disclosure enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use a perfected, commercially viable embodiment absent a claim limitation to that effect.” CFMT, Inc. v. Yieldup Int’l Corp., 349 F.3d 1333, 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2003).
O’Farrell states that “[o]bviousness does not require absolute predictability of success.” In re O’Farrell, 853 F.2d 894, 903 (Fed. Cir. 1988). O’Farrell identifies two kinds of error. In some cases, what would have been “obvious to try” would have been to vary all parameters or try each of numerous possible choices until one possibly arrived at a successful result, where the prior art gave either no indication of which parameters were critical or no direction as to which of many possible choices is likely to be successful…. In others, what was “obvious to try” was to explore a new technology or general approach that seemed to be a promising field of experimentation, where the prior art gave only general guidance as to the particular form of the claimed invention or how to achieve it.
There is no dispute that the difference in starting material shape dictates the resulting nanoparticle shape. In the Wiseman case, the discovery of a new function did not render Wiseman’s disc brakes nonobvious, and the inherent difference in shape here is similarly insufficient. “[Appellants] are, in effect, arguing that a structure suggested by the prior art, and, hence, potentially in the possession of the public, is patentable to them because it also possesses an Inherent, but hitherto unknown, function which they claim to have discovered. This is not the law. A patent on such a structure would remove from the public that which is in the public domain by virtue of its inclusion in, or obviousness from, the prior art.” In re Wiseman, 596 F.2d 1019, 1023 (CCPA 1979).
See In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“Jung argues that the Board gave improper deference to the examiner’s rejection by requiring Jung to ‘identif[y] a reversible error’ by the examiner, which improperly shifted the burden of proving patentability onto Jung. Decision at 11. This is a hollow argument, because, as discussed above, the examiner established a prima facie case of anticipation and the burden was properly shifted to Jung to rebut it. . . . ‘[R]eversible error’ means that the applicant must identify to the Board what the examiner did wrong . . . .”).
As stated in In re Dossel, 115 F.3d 942, 946 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (quoting In re Donaldson Co., 16 F.3d 1189, 1195 (Fed. Cir. 1994)), [a]lthough paragraph six statutorily provides that one may use means-plus-function language in a claim, one is still subject to the requirement that a claim “particularly point out and distinctly claim” the invention. Therefore, if one employs means-plus-function language in a claim, one must set forth in the specification an adequate disclosure showing what is meant by that language. If an applicant fails to set forth an adequate disclosure, the applicant has in effect failed to particularly point out and distinctly claim the invention as required by the second paragraph of section 112.
“[T]he bottom line is that, no matter what term is used to describe a continuing application, that application is entitled to the benefit of the filing date of an earlier application only as to common subject matter.” Transco Products Inc. v. Performance Contracting, Inc., 38 F.3d 551, 556(Fed. Cir. 1994). “A CIP application can be entitled to different priority dates for different claims. Claims containing any matter introduced in the CIP are accorded the filing date of the CIP application. However, matter disclosed in the parent application is entitled to the benefit of the filing date of the parent application.” Waldemar Link GmbH & Co. v. Osteonics Corp., 32 F.3d 556, 558 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
See Application of Lukach, 442 F.2d 967, 969-70 (CCPA 1971) (later-filed broad range claim not supported by earlier grandparent disclosure of point in the range and anticipated by a similar disclosure in a related British patent); In re Gosteli, 872 F.2d 1008 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (later-filed claims containing subject matter, a genus, not disclosed in foreign priority application, disclosing a subgenus of the genus claimed, not entitled to foreign priority); Chester v. Miller, 906 F.2d 1574, 1577-78 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (citing Lukach, holding that broader CIP claims in child were anticipated by the parent, which did not support the broader CIP claims).

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