Opinion ID: 209505
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The issue of delay

Text: The PTO criticizes the long period from initial filing to issuance of the Natta '687 patent. It is indeed extraordinarily long. However, the reexamination examiner acknowledged that there were PTO delays due to multiple interferences which occurred from the 1950's up to 1984 or 1985, while also stating that the applicant caused a substantial number of delays from 1985 to 2000. Examiner's Answer, Application Number: 90/006,297, at 30 (Jan. 13, 2004). The latter period included an appeal to this court, during which the PTO moved for remand in order to conduct additional examination. The record shows no violation by the applicant of the PTO's rules and procedures, or any significant departure from standard practices, in Natta's participating in time-consuming procedures. The delays due to patent interferences are notorious, and here there were three, involving multiple parties and multiple countries. Interference delays generally flow from not only the complexity of the subject matter and requisite proofs, but also the due process that PTO procedures assure in these complex inter partes proceedings, including the rights of appeal and the authorized judicial proceedings. It may well be that the PTO has been unfairly criticized for the lengthy pendency illustrated by this patent; however, it is equally unfair to chastise this patentee, when most of the delay was agreed by the PTO to be due to its procedures. Whatever the reasons for the prolonged pendency, delay is not a ground of double patenting.