Opinion ID: 382067
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Introduction of New Matter by Amending the Patent Abstract

Text: 56 Section 132 of the code provides inter alia that (n)o amendment shall introduce the disclosure of the invention. 60 Premo maintains that Eli Lilly violated this provision by amending the patent abstract in 1968 to include the information discussed in part 2 above. The original application filed in 1962 disclosed only that cephalexin could be used as a topical sterilant. 57 In Triax Co. v. Hartman Metal Fabricators, Inc., 61 the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit provided the following definition of new matter as that term is used in § 132: 58 An amendment to an application is not new matter within the Patent Act or Rules of the Patent Office unless it discloses an invention, process or apparatus not theretofore described. . . . If the latter-submitted material accused of being new matter simply clarifies or completes the prior disclosure it cannot be treated as new matter. . . . Moreover, the determination of the Patent office to admit the later-submitted material, thereby signifying that the Patent Office does not consider it to be new matter, is presumptively correct. 62 59 The 1968 amendment did not disclose an invention, process, or apparatus that was not described in the 1962 application. Rather, the 1968 amendment completed the prior disclosure by identifying and clarifying some of the properties of cephalexin, as well as its salutary performance as an oral antibiotic. Inasmuch as a chemical compound and its properties are one and the same thing, 63 newly discovered poperties of the compound not disclosed in the original specification or abstract may be added by amendment without being treated as new matter under § 132. 64 Moreover, as in Triax, the decision of the Patent Office to admit the material contained in the amendment, which indicates that it did not consider the amendment to be new matter, should be accorded substantial weight. Under these circumstances, we are not persuaded that the information contained in the 1968 amendment constituted new matter in violation of § 132. 65