Source: http://allthingspros.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html
Timestamp: 2014-07-30 09:03:56
Document Index: 83309449

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 103', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 103', '§ 101', '§ 112']

Takeaway: In Ex Parte Sato, the BPAI reversed an obviousness rejection to a claim to a transmission belt. after finding an infinite number of choices existed for the limitation at issue. The claim required fibers oriented along the width of a transmission belt. The Board found the reference did not disclose this orientation, but merely fibers oriented in a direction perpendicular to longitudinal. The Board noted there are an infinite number of directions perpendicular to longitudinal, and the Examiner did not explain why a person of ordinary skill in the art would have selected the width direction from all these possibilities. Details:
Though both the parent claim and this dependent claim were rejected under § 103, the Examiner relied solely on the primary reference, Ito, as teaching the emphasized feature. The Examiner alleged that the claimed width-oriented fibers were disclosed by Ito's teaching of fibers "aligned in a direction orthogonal to a longitudinal line L of the belt." The Examiner explained that width is a direction orthogonal to the longitudinal line. Ito's belt, with line L, is shown below:
In a decision which may greatly impact patentees who find themselves in reexamination, the BPAI held in Ex parte Smith that an Applicant in reexam was estopped from arguing a priority claim based on failure to overcome a written description rejection in the earlier prosecution of the issued patent. Specifically, during the original prosecution the Applicant chose to make a claim amendment to distinguish over a reference rather than to appeal the Examiner's finding that the claim didn't deserve priority to the parent. During reexamination, the Applicant did appeal on this very issue, and the BPAI held that "Appellant’s silence during the original prosecution creates an estoppel for the Appellant to deny the Examiner’s repeated priority findings thereby impliedly conceding their correctness." You can find a full discussion of the decision here on the Patents Post Grant blog. Thanks to Scott McKeown of the Patents Post Grant blog for bringing this decision to my attention.
The claims were directed to a compressor valve which included two magnets: “a magnet coupled to the valve member” and an “opposing magnet.” The Examiner found this feature to be taught by one magnet placed above another, i.e., in opposite locations. The Applicant argued that “opposing magnet” meant “having a magnetic pole which repels the other magnet.” In support of this argument, the Applicant pointed to the spec: [T]he specification favors construing this term as referring to repelling magnets. The specification explains that a “magnet 40 is mounted to the button 38 in such a manner that the orientation of magnets 34 and 40 is such that like poles face each other creating a repelling force.” Application, paragraph 10. That is, the specification teaches repelling magnets. Although Appellant does not suggest that the Board read the specification into claim 18, Appellant stresses that one of ordinary skill in the art would construe the phrase “opposing magnets” to refer to repelling magnets if this phrase is read in light of the specification.
The Board said claim differentiation did apply, and that the doctrine dictated that “opposing” could not refer to the magnetic property, since this would render superfluous the dependent claim language “wherein poles ... are generally aligned ... such that the magnet and the opposing magnet repel one another.” The Board then held that the Examiner's interpretation of “opposing” as “spatially opposing” was reasonable. My two cents: The Board got this one right. In particular, I agree that the specification did not support the Applicant's interpretation. While the spec clearly described two magnets that repel each other, it didn't use the adjective “opposing” to describe this feature. Also, the Applicant should have argued the dependent claim which explicitly spelled out “the magnet and the opposing magnet repel one another.” The Applicant clearly thought the “repelling” feature distinguished over the references. Therefore, the Applicant should argued the claim that specifically included the feature: the dependent claim. That way, if the Examiner/Board agreed that this feature distinguished over the art, the dependent claim would be allowable. As it was, the Board didn't decide (or need to decide) whether or not the reference taught the “repelling” feature. 13 comments:
Takeaway: In the reexamination appeal Ex parte Given Imaging Ltd., the Applicant argued that a reference with a short description and one figure wasn't enabling and thus wasn't anticipatory. Despite the presence of declaration evidence, the BPAI affirmed the anticipation rejection, finding that the reference was enabling for what the Applicant actually claimed. So if your claim is high-level, without a lot of detail, don't be surprised when the reference used against you is also high-level, or when your "reference isn't enabling" argument isn't found persuasive. Details:
Claim 11 recited a different preamble – "autonomous video endoscope" – but was otherwise the same with respect to the issues discussed here. The Examiner issued two different anticipation rejections, using Yamazaki and Saito. The Applicant submitted declaration evidence to show neither reference was enabling, and thus could not anticipate.
The declaration further stated that because of those technical deficiencies, neither reference "could have provided desired medical images without extensive redesign." Therefore, the Applicant argued, the references did not anticipate. "[I]nvalidity based on anticipation requires that the assertedly anticipating disclosure enabled the subject matter of the reference and thus of the patented invention without undue experimentation." Elan Pharms. v. Mayo Found. For Med. Educ. Research, 346 F.3d 1051 (Fed. Cir. 2003). The Examiner's Answer reiterated that both Yamazaki and Saito disclosed each element of independent claims 1 and 11. With respect to the alleged lack of enablement, the Examiner maintained that the references did disclose a functioning optical system because they did produce images of some kind. While acknowledging that the "systems may not produce the desired medical images," the Examiner noted that arguments about "desired medical images" were outside the scope of the claims, which did not refer to image quality. The Board affirmed both anticipation rejections, finding that both references disclosed each claim element. In doing so, the Board found that both references were enabling for what the Applicant actually claimed.
With respect to claim 1, the Board interpreted an “in vivo video camera system” as "a system capable of taking video pictures inside a body." The Applicant acknowledged in oral arguments that the systems disclosed in the references could produce some type of image. Therefore, the Board found that the references were enabling for claim 1. The Board said the Applicant's argument that the disclosed systems were not capable of
producing images suitable for medical diagnosis was
irrelevant, since the claim specified neither the type of image nor a particular image quality.
That couldn't make up for the fatal mistake committed by the Applicant here: arguing outside of the claims. Or, as the Board often puts it, "Applicant's arguments are not commensurate with the scope of the claims." Another way of looking at this decision is that it turned on claim construction: the Applicant interpreted "in vivo video camera system" and "endoscopic system" as producing images suitable for medical diagnosis; the Board said that interpretation was too narrow. The Applicant also made an interesting argument about the presumption that a reference is operable – interesting, but unsuccessful. The Applicant acknowledged that issued patents are entitled to the presumption of operability, but argued that unexamined patent applications are not. The Board held that since the filing of a patent application is considered constructive reduction to practice, the presumption still applies. The concurrence in this opinion went much further, holding that any type of reference – including a newspaper article – should be presumed operable.
The BPAI recently marked the 2009 opinion Ex parte Givens as "informative." As I noted in an earlier post (here), the BPAI marks certain opinions as informative in order to "explain best practices ... [and] address recurring problems." In Ex parte Givens, the BPAI enforced the "reasonable" part of "broadest reasonable interpretation," the claim construction standard used in prosecution. The technology in Givens was digital signal processing, and the claim term at issue was "sub-band spectral subtractive routine." You can find a quick summary of Ex parte Givens here at The 271 Patent Blog. But here's the part you want to use as reasoning in your next argument over broadest reasonable interpretation: "Any interpretation that fails to give weight to “sub-band,” “spectral,” “subtractive,” and “routine” deprives the words in this claim term of their normal meaning."
Takeaway: The reexam decision Ex parte Port-A-Cool, LLC shows that to rebut a prima facie case of obviousness, you need to do more than merely assert that the combination of features represents more than the exercise of a POSITA's skill. You need to actually explain why and how this is so by providing details of the technical difficulties and of the skills required for attaining such objectives. Details: Ex parte Port-A-Cool, LLC (decision, rehearing)
1. A cooler housing supported on a base, having an exterior, an interior, and front and rear openings, where the base is integrally formed with the housing ... The Examiner acknowledged that the Calvin reference did not teach a "base ... integrally formed with the housing." The Examiner used the "obvious design choice" to close this gap, citing to In re Larson for the proposition that "merely making integral parts that are separate involves only routine engineering design."
The Declarations establish the problems encountered in the art, the prior art solution to the problems and the time duration in which the invention was made in light of one skilled in the art, including the educational, technical and industrial experience of the declarant. Such factors are indicative that the claimed invention is not obvious to those of skill in the art. On appeal, the Board applied one of the rationales from KSR to affirm the obviousness rejection. Even considering the declaration evidence as to why the modification would not be obvious, the Board found:
(Emphasis added.) After the appeal decision, the Applicant asked for a rehearing. In the Request for Rehearing, the Applicant argued that the declaration "presented details of the development of the invention" which "required extensive efforts by one of ordinary skill the art, and was not a 'predictable variation'." The Applicant argued that the Board's statements referring to "no persuasive evidence" and "merely applies the well known technique" were contrary to the declaration evidence. In its Decision on Request for Rehearing, the Board explained that the declarations were unpersuasive because they did not present details to explain why integrally forming the base with the housing would be beyond the skill of a POSITA. The Applicant's rebuttal to the prima facie case was an assertion of technical challenges beyond the skill of a POSITA, but the evidence did not support that assertion. ... Contrary to the Appellant's assertion, in our view, the Declaration does not present "details" that persuade us that integrally forming the base with the housing would have entailed skills beyond those of one of ordinary skill. The Declaration states that integrally forming the base with the housing was "troublesome since it required the combination of two separate functional components into one while incorporating all of the stability characteristics of the caddy base and the operational features of the housing and which further addressed the bottom surface weakness of the rotomolded caddy base." (Decl. ¶ 11). However, such a general statement is not much more than simple articulation of the functional objectives for developing the claimed invention, and does not provide details as to the technical difficulties and skills required for attaining such objectives.
While the Declaration further states that "molds had to be continually re-designed in order to address the issue of stability[,]" (Decl. ¶ 11), with the exception of the above noted "void" issue, no further details are provided with respect what other technical issues or unforeseeable problems were addressed during by each redesign and how many redesigns were required. Furthermore, while the general assertion is made that "a great deal of time and resources were expended to solve these issues[,]" (Decl. ¶ 12), no details are provided with respect to the amount of time and resources expended. The Appellant's argument for non-obviousness is based on the assertion that there were technical challenges to the claimed invention that were beyond the skill set of one of ordinary skill in the art, the solution for which was inventive and took substantial time and resources to develop. However, the evidence does not reflect these challenges and the alleged inventive contribution.
(Emphasis added.) My two cents: Arguing that the combination of references doesn't teach one of the limitations is almost always a better choice than arguing that the combination isn't obvious. But if you're stuck with arguing obviousness itself, this decision provides an excellent explanation of what it takes to overcome obviousness at the BPAI. Although this decision involves declaration evidence, the same principles apply to attorney argument. In short, you're unlikely to overcome an obviousness rejection by arguing "No, it's not just a predictable variation" or "No, it's not a simple substitution." You need to explain why that's so, in as much detail as possible.
Neither the Applicant nor the Examiner discussed KSR, which was relatively new law when this application went to appeal. 26 comments:
Takeaway: For an example of a swear behind (§ 1.131) declaration that the BPAI found convincing, see the reexamination appeal decision Ex parte Test.com. Note this one is an actual reduction to practice case, so no diligence is involved. This decision also shows that a declaration that does not show reduction to practice of every claim limitation can be still be sufficient if what is missing are "details which are obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art." (In re Spiller, 500 F2.2d 1170, 1178.) Details: Earlier this year I wrote a series of blog posts on swear-behind (§ 1.131) declarations at the BPAI. (See Part I, Part II, and Part III.) In that same series, I also noted that a study by Patently O showed that the BPAI finds three-fourths of the swear-behind declarations that are at issue on appeal to be insufficient for one reason or another.
In Spiller, the court determined a Rule 131 declaration showing possession of the “basic invention,” or the “heart of the invention,” or “establish[ing] broadly possession of the invention,” can be adequate to antedate a prior art reference even if what is shown in the Rule 131 declaration does not include all of the limitations of the later-claimed invention. Id. As such, we find that Appellant has sufficiently demonstrated a reduction to practice through declarations and exhibits showing possession of the “basic invention” or the “heart of the invention.” Specifically, Appellant has shown news publication, promotional materials, and screen shots which show an online testing center (FF 1-1), adding new or editing existing test questions (FF 7-1), a fee for the test-taker (FF 11-1), revenue sharing (FF 5-2, 8-1), and private user accounts (FF 2-1, 3-2, 9-1). Additionally, the exhibits show, and declarations support facts clearly describing, a webpage which Appellant declares was online and available before November 16, 1998 depicting an online testing site depicting icons allowing a user to at least “take a test” and “create a test,” and go to their “account” and/or “private account” (FF 4-2, 4-3), which we find substantially support the broad limitations as claimed by Appellant. Thus,Appellant has shown a reduction to practice of his basic invention, which showing will also suffice as to claims differing therefrom only in details which are obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Spiller 500 F.2d at 1178. My two cents: If you're preparing a swear-behind declaration and don't have a lot of experience in this area, do yourself a favor and read Ex parte Test.com, and maybe even review the actual declaration and exhibits on PAIR. Seems to me the clear danger in submitting a swear-behind that shows the "heart of the invention" rather than every limitation is that relying on In re Spiller also means you're admitting that the difference between what you showed and what you claim is obvious. So you get rid of one reference, but if the Examiner finds another teaching only the elements you relied on in your declaration, he has a good single-reference obviousness rejection, right? Because you've admitted the missing elements are obvious. Perhaps this is less dangerous in a reexam context, because maybe you can assume the reference asserted is the best one? No comments:
Is it a good idea to point out every time the Examiner makes a mistake in an Office Action? I don't think Applicants do this to be snide. I think some Applicants really are worried that failing to address every incorrect statement in the Office Action somehow damages their case. I came across a file history in which the Examiner issued a § 103 rejection, and prefaced it with the standard form paragraph from MPEP 706.02. The paragraph starts with "This application currently names joint inventors" and then goes on to say that if any claims are not commonly owned, the Applicant has a duty to let the Examiner know since that opens up more prior art under 103(c)/102(e). Turns out the form paragraph was inappropriate because the application named only a single inventor. The Applicant made this point in the next response, carefully stating for the record that the application was filed with a single inventor, inventorship had not changed, and "Appellant is unaware of any other circumstances leading to the conclusion that there are multiple inventors." Now, the Applicant was very polite in correcting the record. So the Examiner shouldn't have felt insulted – if he even noticed this paragraph buried after all the other arguments. But still ... is this necessary? What possible harm can come from just letting this slide?
Is it simply that some incorrect statements do need to be addressed? [And I agree that some do.] So that if you address all the errors, you don't need to think about which ones matter? 13 comments:
The Board concluded that "it is simply not reasonably clear what statutory class claim 5 is intended to be directed." Details:Ex parte Miyata
5. In a video camera system capable of carrying out panning/tilting control of a camera device and capable of displaying a video imaged by the camera device on a monitor as well as superimposing a mask image on an arbitrary area within a range of imaging with the camera device, the video camera system being characterized in that
A computer-readable medium encoded with software to perform the claimed functions, but not the processor which executes the software? The software per se?
My two cents: I gotta admit this is one of the most incomprehensible claims I've ever seen. Perhaps a bad translation is to blame: the application claims priority to a Japanese application. The Board's focus on statutory classes in the context of indefiniteness is a bit unusual. I usually see this sort of analysis in § 101 rejections. The claim's real problem is the confusion about the structural elements. So I'd reject as indefinite for that reason alone, and not bother with any discussion of statutory classes. I certainly agree with the Board's refusal to rule on the prior art rejections — you need some degree of certainty about claim scope in order to discuss the prior art.
The Board's holding that the preamble term "system" could be interpreted as a method in this application is ridiculous. (Same issue came up in a previous BPAI decision, see my previous post here.) 15 comments:
Patently-unOBVIOUS makes the interesting point that the claim should be interpreted as inherently applying pressure to the eyeball, and that this should qualify as a transformation of an article. My take on this is that the Board did not think as carefully about the claim as Patently-unOBVIOUS did, and would not have affirmed the 101 if they realized that the claim required movement of the eyeball. I say that because another claim explicitly recited "perturbing the cornea," and the Board did not apply a new 101 rejection for that claim. Check out the full post at Patently-unOBVIOUS, which has the catchy title The Punched Drunk Eye of Schrodinger's Cat. As a postscript, the Applicant in Ex parte Roberts reopened prosecution after the adverse appeal decision. In addition to amending in an attempt to overcome the affirmed prior art rejections, the Applicant has also tried several different tacks to overcome the 101 rejections. None of them have worked: the Examiner twice rejected different varieties of a computer-readable medium claim, then rejected a method claim which explicitly recites a computer system in the body.
The patentee accepted that the plain meaning of "superposed" was "above." Even so, the patentee argued that one of ordinary skill in the art would interpret the claim as referring to one plug above and a different plug below, since the claim contained two references to "a bridge plug." The district court rejected the patentee's "strained and entirely unpersuasive attempt to reinterpret Claim 4." Having concluded that the claim contained an error, the court then phrased the next issue as whether it had the authority to correct the error by replacing "superposed bridge plug" (i.e., above) with "subjacent bridge plug (i.e., below). As a threshold matter, the court held it would not correct the error because the patentee had argued in a hearing that the claim did not contain an error. Furthermore, correction is appropriate only when the correction is not subject to reasonable debate – and here reasonable debate existed because the patentee argued "no error."
The court then quickly disposed of the issue of infringement (none – not even possible) and moved on to invalidity. The court found the claim failed to meet both the written description requirement and the requirement under § 112 Second "applicant regards as his invention:" With Claim 4 written as is, the specification would have to describe a bridge plug that has a lower end capable of engaging another bridge plug located above it. Instead, the specification describes what one would expect to find, namely a bridge plug with an engaging portion at an end that is capable of connecting with another bridge plug positioned adjacent to that end. Because Claim 4 is not described anywhere in the specification (due to the use of "superposed" instead of "subjacent"), it necessarily fails the written description requirement ...
My two cents: Definitely the right result. Though I do wonder if four grounds for invalidity were overkill. The court treated as fatal the patentee's refusal to admit error in the claim. But I feel certain that the court would have reached the same result anyway. The facts here seem very close to the burning bread dough in Chef America. I'd be surprised if the claim at issue was an originally filed claim. Instead, it was probably the result of careless prosecution. I'd say the four lessons here are:
Proofread your claim amendments. Proofread your allowed claims. Proofread your issued claims. Proofread before filing a lawsuit. The decision did not mention a certificate of correction, so I assume there wasn't one. The patentee did file amended infringement contentions, replacing "superposed" with "subjacent."
Takeaway: The BPAI has held in a number of decisions that the mere fact that the references used in an obviousness rejection are old does not indicate non-obviousness. Federal Circuit precedent requires actual evidence of a long felt need. Iron Grip Barbell Co., Inc. v. USA Sports, Inc., 392 F.3d 1317, 1324-25 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (absent a showing of long-felt need or the failure of others, the mere passage of time without the claimed invention is not evidence of nonobviousness); and In re Wright, 569 F.2d 1124, 1127 (CCPA 1977) (the mere age of the references is not persuasive
of the unobviousness of the combination of their teachings, absent evidence that, notwithstanding knowledge of the references, the art tried and failed to solve the problem).
In Ex parte Bourhis, the Applicant even explained why the age of the reference should have been considered an indication of non-obviousness: No motivation would have existed to use Kim’s compositions in Curry’s two compartment devices. Specifically, Kim was filed about 26 years after Curry. Thus, Curry’s two compartment devices were well-known at the time Kim filed his application. Yet, Kim neither teaches nor suggests using his compositions in a two-compartment device.