Source: http://allthingspros.blogspot.com/2010/09/
Timestamp: 2018-06-18 16:55:37
Document Index: 428699718

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 112', '§ 103', '§ 112', '§ 112', '§ 112', '§ 112', '§ 103', 'art, 417']

In two cases, the claims described the shape of an element, but the Board found that the word used to describe the shape didn't match the drawings. In one case (Ex parte Sazy), the claim recited "banana shaped unitary body" and the drawings depicted a shape which suggested a banana. However, the Board noted that the dictionary definition of banana included "tapering" : "elongated often curved and usually tapering fruit of the banana plant." The Board found that the shape in the Applicant's drawing was elongated and curved, but not tapering. The Board affirmed the indefiniteness rejection because of this inconsistency between drawings and claims.
In another case involving a shape (Ex parte Sabbagh), the claim recited "kidney shaped shield" and the drawings depicted a shape which suggested a kidney. (See Applicant's Fig. 1 below.)
The Applicant argued that "a kidney-shaped object generally is round or oval and indented at one side like a kidney organ or a kidney bean," and provided images of a kidney organ and a kidney bean. However, the Board found that the shapes were different:
After comparing the shape of Appellant’s claimed shield body (as per Figure 1 of Appellant’s Drawings) with the examples provided by Appellant of kidney-shaped objects (as per Figures 1A and 1B of the Amendment), we do not find that Appellant’s illustrated oral shield 100 is kidney-shaped ...
My two cents: I don't think I've ever seen this sort of rejection before. In my experience, when the Examiner thinks the claims don't match the spec, the result is a rejection under § 112, 1st.
In all the cases discussed above, the BPAI cites to In re Cohn, which is really about inconsistency claim limitation and the teachings of the spec.
As used and defined in the specification, and unmodified by other terminology, an "opaque finish" is a flat-appearing finish which is not obtained when an alkali metal silicate is used as a sealant.... The claims, on the other hand, specifically call for sealing the oxide surface with an alkali silicate in order to ultimately obtain an "opaque appearance."
In re Cohn, 438, F.2d 939, 993 (CCPA 1971)
Of the four cases discussed above, In re Cohn seems on point for two of them. In re Cohn seems clearly on point for the the layer case (Choe), and still on point for the support structure case (Salazar). But I'm not convinced that In re Cohn really speaks to the banana case (Sazy) or the kidney case (Sabbagh).
the technology center;
the outcome (reversed, affirmed, affirmed-in-part);
the name of the law firm;
the name of the Examiner; and
case law cited by the BPAI.
This great resource is compiled by James Long, a registered U.S. patent attorney who currently works for the Jianq Chyun Intellectual Property Office in Taiwan.
Labels: blog, BPAI
Ex parte STEPHEN JAMES BROWN
With regard to evidence of actual reduction to practice, the Board had this to say:
Many of the activities detailed in the declaration and exhibits bear little direct relation to actually reducing the invention to practice. Many of the activities are directed to establishing intellectual property protection measures, obtaining speaking engagements, and planning for staffing needs. Others, such as proposing development timetables, are tangentially related, but show no actual reduction itself.
Next, with regard to diligence:
The period from September 3 to 30 is unaccounted for. Further, no activity is shown between October 7 and October 27. To establish diligence for constructive reduction to practice, the attorney’s diligence must be shown.
The Board quoted the law for excusable lapses in diligence:
The Board then applied the law of diligence to the facts:
But there is no evidence of such a backlog or that if there was a backlog that it was taken up in chronological order. There is also no evidence showing that the period subsequent to the last documented attorney activity on October 29 up to the date of filing was excused activity. We are left with a large number of days in which no documented attorney activity occurred and no evidence that those days were excusable.
My two cents: This is a good teaching case of what not to do in a swear-behind.
Labels: 1.131, BPAI, declaration, diligence, swear behind
Check out this boilerplate from U.S. Pub. 20080087720:
[0037]The present invention includes several independently meritorious inventive aspects and advantages. Unless compelled by the claim language itself, the claims should not be construed to be limited to structures that incorporate all of the inventive aspects, or enjoy all of the advantages, disclosed herein.
[0038]It is well established that the claims of the patent serve an important public notice function to potential competitors--enabling them to not only determine what is covered, but also what is not covered--by the patent. And a number of Federal Circuit decisions have emphasized the importance of discerning the patentee's intent--as expressed in the specification--in construing the claims of the patent.
[0039]But defendants in patent infringement suits--while arguing the importance of this public notice function--often seek strained and uncharitable constructions of the claims that would render them either nonsensical, too narrow to have any significant value, or so broad that the claim is anticipated by the prior art. Counsel for defendants routinely flog minor grammatical, typographical, or syntactical flaws, if any, in the claims or specification, forgetting that patents are generally written by--and for--engineers and technicians, not by and for grammatical perfectionists and English language PhD's. Furthermore, defendants frequently misconstrue the specification and prosecution history in claim construction briefs and hearings in an effort to import contrived and novel limitations into the construction of the claims. They also frequently strive to--in essence--rewrite the claims so that they do not cover the accused device.
[0040]Accordingly, I wish to make my intentions clear--and at the same time put potential competitors on clear public notice. It is my intent that the claims receive a liberal construction and be interpreted to uphold and not destroy the right of the inventor. It is my intent that the claim terms be construed in a charitable and common-sensical manner, in a manner that encompasses the embodiments disclosed in the specification and drawings without incorporating unrecited, unnecessary limitations. It is my intent that the claim terms be construed as broadly as practicable while preserving the validity of the claims. It is my intent that the claim terms be construed in a manner consistent with the context of the overall claim language and the specification, without importing extraneous limitations from the specification or other sources into the claims, and without confining the scope of the claims to the exact representations depicted in the specification or drawings. It is also my intent that not each and every term of the claim be systematically defined and rewritten. Claim terms and phrases should be construed only to the extent that it will provide helpful, clarifying guidance to the jury, or to the extent needed to resolve a legitimate, good faith dispute that is material to the questions of validity or infringement. Otherwise, simple claim terms and phrases should be presented to the jury without any potentially confusing and difficult-to-apply definitional construction.
My two cents: I don't expect a statement of the drafter's intent to affect how a court interprets claims. The law already allows for things like construing terms in accordance with the spec while not importing limitations from the spec, construing to avoid invalidity in some situations, etc. I don't think the patentee gets better treatment by asking for it in the spec, nor worse treatment if you don't ask.
Lampi, LLC. v. American Power Products, Inc.
N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division,
The accused infringer argued that the statements made in the trademark prosecution prevented the patentee from denying a sale before the critical date. The doctrine of judicial estoppel is an equitable concept that forbids a litigant from obtaining victory in a prior proceeding and then repudiating the grounds for that victory in a different case to win a second victory. Chaveriat v. Williams Pipe Line Co., 11 F.3d 1420, 1427 (7th Cir.1993). However, the doctrine should not be applied when the former position was the result of inadvertence or mistake or when there is only an appearance of inconsistency between the two positions. In Matter of Cassidy, 892 F.2d 637, 642 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 812, 111 S.Ct. 48, 112 L.Ed.2d 24 (1990).
My two cents: "Use in commerce" in trademark law is not exactly the same as "sale" in patent law — but it's pretty close. The statutory definition of "use in commerce" includes "goods are sold or transported in commerce." Seems to me that if your first use was sale, rather than transport, that qualifies as an on-sale event in patent law.
That's only half the story. The date of first use in commerce is relevant only if the "Micro Lampi" product which was the subject of the trade dress registration was also embodied in the patent claims. The opinion didn't analyze this, but simply stated that the Micro Lampi was the commercial embodiment of the patents-in-suit, and that "Lampi applied to the PTO to register the external design of the Micro Lampi as a trademark." Perhaps the patentee admitted that the two were the same.
Labels: dependent claim, district court, on sale bar
The subject matter of the application was a system for manufacturing a stent, including a laser system 20 which cut out a pattern from a tube 12 mounted on a movable shaft 18. According to the Applicant, the inventive features included securing the tube in a vertical orientation, and a liquid flow 26, both of which assisted in removing debris during the cutting process.
The claims on appeal were rejected under § 103, but the Board did not reach the merits of the rejection. Instead, the Board raised a new ground of rejection under § 112, ¶ 2, finding that the "mechanism" limitation in each independent claim was indefinite.
The two limitations are issue were:
a mechanism adapted to move at least one of the optical system and the securement device while maintaining the cutting spot on the wall of the tubular member thereby moving the cutting spot over at least a portion of the wall of the tubular member in both vertical and circumferential directions;
a mechanism adapted to move at least one of the laser apparatus and the securement device whereby the laser system removes material from at least a portion of the wall of the tubular member in both vertical and circumferential directions;
The Board first held that both claims were indefinite under the precedential opinion Ex parte Miyazaki:
In the Appeal Brief, the Applicant pointed to a section of the spec as disclosing the structure. However, the Board found the spec merely stated the function ("the tube 12 is moved via the predetermined movement pattern of shaft 18"), and did not "identify the specific mechanisms or structures that impart the disclosed movements."
My two cents: A straightforward application of § 112, ¶ 6. No structure = indefinite. I see a lot of means-plus-function claims shot down in computer and electronics applications, but this was one of the few times I've seen that happen in a mechanical case.
The interesting aspect to me is how to draft a claim that avoids this rejection. The claim recited "an optical system including a laser, said optical system adapted to form a cutting spot on a wall of a tubular member ... and to modulate the laser energy according to a predetermined pattern." The second independent claim included a whereby clause that captured the important aspect of vertical removal: "whereby the laser system removes material from at least a portion of the wall of the tubular member in both vertical and circumferential directions."
Could you just tack the whereby clause onto the end of the claim, to capture the inventive vertical removal aspect while avoiding explicitly claiming the movement?
What about a method claim with the step "moving the optical system or the securement device"? Could you get away with that, or would it be vulnerable to an § 112, 1st rejection? I think you have a better chance of overcoming enablement because you can rely on the knowledge of a POSITA. Perhaps you could successfully argue that even though you didn't disclose a computer-controlled motor for moving the shaft in a pattern, a POSITA would know how to do that.
One more interesting tidbit about this case. This is the second appeal for this case, and the Applicant still doesn't have a Board decision on the prior art rejections. In the first appeal, the merits weren't reached because the Board rejected the hybrid method/system claims as indefinite under IPXL Holdings v. Amazon.com. On return from the first appeal, the Applicant amended the claims to clearly claim a system rather than a method, by reciting the "optical system," the "securement device" and the "mechanism adapted to move." The Applicant appealed at the Examiner's prior art rejections at the first opportunity. But the § 112, ¶ 6 rejection raised by the Board once again prevented a decision on the prior art rejection.
Labels: BPAI, functional limitation, means plus function
The Board found no conflict, reasoning that: "[if] i is at least occasionally greater than one (as claim 1 requires), it is therefore possible that i could be invariant (as claim 2 requires), and always be equal to two, or three, or any other integer greater than one, without doing violence to the requirement of claim 1."
Ex parte Giacomini
The subject matter of the application was web servers. The claims were directed to populating a web cache with resources. One of the issues on appeal was an enablement rejection of dependent claim 2. That claim, and it's parent claim, are shown below, with the relevant language emphasized.
1. A method comprising: populating a cache with a resource only when at least i requests for said resource have been received; wherein i is an integer and is at least occasionally greater than one.
But does this same behavior read on "i is occasionally greater than 1"? I don't know. I don't really know how to parse that. But let's say it does. Let's say that "always > 1" satisfies "occasionally > 1".
You can see where I'm going with this ... does "10% of the time" read on "occasionally"? Where do you draw the line? This is probably the most difficult-to-parse claim that I've run across in a long time.
Takeaway: The BPAI found unpersuasive an Applicant's "no motivation to combine argument" that a primary reference related to a home user context while the secondary reference related to a mass production context. The Board found that the secondary reference was not in fact limited to a mass production context.
(Ex parte Fellowes, Inc.)
This appeal involved a patent under reexam. The claims at issue were directed to a paper insert for a CD case with a specific pattern of fold lines. The § 103 rejection combined a cassette insert having perforated lines (Ace) with a CD insert having fold lines (Fantone).
The Applicant argued that a POSITA would not be motivated to combine the two references because the cassette insert in Ace was directed to home users, while the CD insert in Fantone was directed to mass production. The Examiner's Answer addressed this argument as follows:
While admittedly, these CD storage boxes could be used manufactured [sic] in a production run of pre-produced and packaged compact discs, they equally could be sold to the home or office consumer for use in storing homemade compact disc media. There is nothing in the Fantone reference that limits the use of the disclosed prior art CD Rom jewel boxes for a commercial production of pre-packaged CDs. Additionally, the current patent claims are not limited to any commercial use or production of the claimed product.
The Board affirmed the obviousness rejection, noting that the Applicant's no-motivation-to-combine argument was "only viable in the context of mass production," and "[did] not address the Examiner’s home or office consumer rationale." The Board further noted that the Applicant's own Background section supported the Examiner's use of a consumer context, since the Background stated that “a need [has grown] to label these disks and their storage containers once they have been produced,” that the disks “are being used for archival data storage,” and there is a need for labels involving “short runs of disks.”
Labels: 103, BPAI, motivation to combine
At the Intellectual Property Directions blog, Bruce Horwitz has an interesting post "Summary Judgment - What should your application include?" Bruce makes a case for including Background and Summary sections in patent applications.
On a recent comment thread on PatentlyO, I ran across a very insightful statement about claim drafting: "the art of claim drafting is being vague to exactly the right extent." (Read the full comment here.) I'll add my own variation: the art of claim drafting is being vague to exactly the right extent and in areas that have been carefully considered. In other words, using the word "connected" is good if you've considered that it might be interpreted as directly or indirectly connected. If you haven't thought about this, it's vague in a bad way.
Related posts: I've mentioned the Intellectual Property Directions blog before. At this post here, I mentioned another post by Bruce Horowitz about what to include in a patent spec, which I characterized as "unconventional." I don't always agree with Bruce, but I welcome opposing points of view that are reasonable and well-explained, as his are.
Takeaway: The claims in Ex parte Sosalla were directed to a disposable garment including a focal and a background graphic, where the claims further described characteristics of each graphic. On appeal, the Board issued a new anticipation rejection using the printed matter doctrine. Specifically, the Board found that the two graphics were printed matter on the garment substrate, and that the properties of the graphics were thus non-functional descriptive material and not entitled to patentable weight.
Sosalla discloses each structural limitation on the garments recited in each of these claims ... This includes, without limitation, a disposable garment having a multicolored scene graphic including a focal graphic incorporating at least one character graphic; a background graphic; and a garment-feature graphic disposed on the garment.
The Board then found that the non-structural limitations of the claim were not entitled to patentable weight:
The disposable garment in each of the appealed claims serves as a substrate and the focal graphic and background graphic are printed matter on that substrate. (FF 3, 4). The relationship between the disposable garment and the graphics is aesthetic and a non-functional relationship. To the extent that the Appellants argue that the relative degree of blurring of the focal and background graphics makes such garments visually appealing and more desirable to wear (see Spec. 1, ll. 10-26), the function of the graphics is “useful and intelligible only to the human mind” and, as such, does not patentably (that is, structurally) distinguish the claimed subject matter from the prior art. See In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 1583 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (quoting In re Bernhart, 417 F.2d 1395, 1399 (CCPA 1969); see also In re Seid, 161 F.2d 229, 231 (CCPA 1947) (differences in ornamentation are entitled to little weight in determining the obviousness of a claim to a structure).
My two cents: The Board only muddied the waters by referring to ornamentation and aesthetics to explain why the visual appeal of the claimed graphics was not a patentable distinction. This case really rested on the printed matter doctrine, quoted in the "Principles of Law" section of the opinion:
When the printed matter is not functionally related to the substrate, the printed matter will not distinguish the invention from the prior art in terms of patentability. Although the printed matter must be considered, in that situation it may not be entitled to patentable weight. In re Gulack, 703 18 F.2d 1381, 1385 (Fed. Cir. 1983).
So I read this case as being a straightforward application of the printed matter doctrine. The details of the graphics – aesthetic or not – are completely irrelevant, since no functional relationship existed between the garment and the graphics.
Ex parte McQueer
Claim 11 was directed to a protective athletic garment that includes “a substantially rigid shoulder portion adapted to protect a shoulder area of a user from impact.”
The Examiner issued an anticipation rejection using a reference which disclosed a breast plate. The Examiner read the “shoulder portion” of the claim on a pair of shoulder straps for attaching the breast plate to a user’s body.
The Examiner provided this further explanation:
All fabric materials are rigid to a degree, including elastic/nylon material. Elastic/nylon material would have a substantially greater rigidity in comparison to other materials. Furthermore, the degree of rigidity of an elastic nylon material would also be affected by the temperature of the material, very cold temperatures would create a substantially more rigid material then when the same material is at room temperature.
The Board was not persuaded by the Examiner's reasoning:
Thus, the Examiner contends that because there theoretically exists some material that is less rigid than an elastic nylon material, then the elastic nylon material may be considered substantially rigid. That position is unreasonable. By that standard, all materials are at once substantially rigid and yet also substantially non-rigid.
The Board cited to dictionary definitions of rigid and flexible, and finally concluded that “[i]t is unreasonable to view the requirement that a material be substantially devoid of flexibility as also encompassing a material that is flexible, such as Jankowski’s elastic nylon material.” Such an interpretation “effectively reads the term 'substantially rigid' out of the claims.”
The Board also noted that the Examiner's statement about rigidity at cold temperatures was a mere assertion. Furthermore, the Examiner did not “adequately explain, why, even if the assertion is true, a material that increases its rigidity only for a limited time under an extreme circumstance, i.e., very cold temperatures, meets the general and unrestricted claim requirement of a shoulder portion that is “substantially rigid.”
When is Patent Prior Art Distinct but Not Different?