Opinion ID: 470098
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Intent to Claim

Text: 32 Language appearing first in the opinion in U.S. Industrial Chemicals, Inc. v. Carbide & Carbon Chemicals Corp., 315 U.S. 668, 676, 62 S.Ct. 839, 843, 86 L.Ed. 1105, 53 USPQ 6, 9-10 (1942), has been picked up and has metamorphosed into a requirement that an applicant show his original intent to claim the subject matter of the reissue claim sought. The phrase intent to claim does not appear in the statute. It is but judicial shorthand, signifying a means of measuring whether the statutorily required error is present. Clearly, a showing that an applicant had an intent to claim matter he did not claim can go a long way to support a finding that error occurred; and, conversely, a showing that an applicant never had any such intent makes a finding of error extremely difficult if not impossible. 33 References to intent to claim in our cases, though occasionally including Sec. 112 considerations, resolve ultimately into the question of error. Determining what protection [an inventor] intended to secure by [an] original patent for the purposes of Sec. 251 is an essentially factual inquiry confined to the objective intent manifested by the original patent. In re Rowand, 526 F.2d 558, 560, 187 USPQ 487, 489 (CCPA 1975) (emphasis in original). As explained in a later decision, Rowand's test of intent to claim was not one of intent per se, but looked to objective indicia of intent. In re Mead, 581 F.2d 251, 256, 198 USPQ 412, 417 (CCPA 1978). The court in Mead analogized that evidence of intent to the written description requirement of Sec. 112, first paragraph, i.e., a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it. See also In re Peters, 723 F.2d 891, 894, 221 USPQ 952, 954 (Fed.Cir.1984). It is true that absence of compliance with Sec. 112 will foreclose a finding of intent and preclude grant of the reissue, but, as indicated above, that absence dooms the application in any event. The converse is not true. Compliance with Sec. 112 does not alone establish intent to claim and does not alone establish error in a failure to claim. 3 34 This court has recently moved the intent to claim approach toward closer conformity with the statute, describing it as merely one factor that sheds light upon whether the claims of the reissue application are directed to the same invention as the original patent and the reissue would correct an inadvertent error in the original patent. In re Hounsfield, 699 F.2d 1320, 1323, 216 USPQ 1045, 1048 (Fed.Cir.1982) (emphasis added). 35