Opinion ID: 3171483
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Court Properly Granted Summary

Text: Judgment in Favor of the PTO We now address the merits of Appellants’ arguments. The Act provides that A Delay will stop accruing when the PTO “provide[s] at least one of the notifications under Section 132.” 35 U.S.C. § 154(b). Thus, under the statute’s plain meaning, the issue of whether the PTO provided a notification under Section 132 is dispositive of this case. White v. United States, 543 F.3d 1330, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (“It is a bedrock canon of statutory construction that our judicial inquiry ends where statutory language is plain and unambiguous.”). In Chester v. Miller, we held that “Section 132 is violated when a rejection is so uninformative that it prevents the applicant from recognizing and seeking to counter the grounds for rejection.” 906 F.2d 1574, 1578 (Fed. Cir. 1990). Chester concerned whether an examiner’s rejection on the basis of anticipation under Section 102 satisfied the notice requirements PFIZER INC. v. LEE 9 of Section 132. We noted that, to make a successful rejection under Section 132, the PTO does not have to “explicitly preempt every possible response to a section 102 rejection.” Id. Instead, Section 132 merely requires that an applicant “at least be informed of the broad statutory basis for [the rejection of] his claims, so that he may determine what the issues are on which he can or should produce evidence.” Id. (quoting In re Hughes, 345 F.2d 184, 185 (CCPA 1965)). Applying these principles, we found the examiner’s rejection in Chester sufficient to satisfy the requirements of Section 132. Id. (“In the instant case, the reasons supporting the prima facie case of anticipation did put Chester on notice. The [examiner] specified exactly which claims read on exactly what prior art.”). Here, Appellants argue that the PTO’s original restriction requirement failed to satisfy the notice requirement of Section 132 because it failed to classify six dependent claims 2 into the examiner’s defined invention groups, and thus failed to place the applicants on notice of the restriction requirement as to those dependent claims. See J.A. A461-65. Appellants next argue that the initial restriction requirement was not valid because the examiner treated it as though it had “been withdrawn.” J.A. A569. Appellants argue that the initial restriction requirement should accordingly be treated as a “non-event” for purposes of determining whether Section 132 was satisfied, and, hence, whether A Delay should have ceased accruing under the Act. 2 Namely, dependent claims 75-76 and 103-106 were omitted from the initial restriction requirement. Claims 75-76 were both dependent from claim 73, and claims 103-06 were all dependent from claim 98. J.A. A363-66. 10 PFIZER INC. v. LEE We find Appellants’ arguments unpersuasive. As in Chester, the examiner’s initial restriction requirement satisfied the statutory notice requirement because it informed the applicant of “the broad statutory basis for [the rejection of] his claims.” Chester, 906 F.2d at 1578. Here, the examiner’s detailed descriptions of the 21 distinct invention groups outlined in the examiner’s initial restriction requirement were clear, providing sufficient information to which the applicants could have responded. Indeed, the applicants never challenged the content of the invention groups defined by the examiner. And, significantly, the examiner’s defined invention groups remained identical between the two restriction requirements. Compare J.A. A461-65 (initial restriction requirement), with A569-73 (revised restriction requirement). Viewed as a whole, the restriction requirement provided adequate grounds on which the applicants could “recogniz[e] and seek[] to counter the grounds for rejection.” Chester, 906 F.2d at 1578. Therefore, because the examiner clearly defined to the applicants the invention groups available for election and further prosecution, the applicants were placed on sufficient notice of the reasons for the examiner’s restriction requirement. As for the six claims whose classifications were omitted from the initial restriction requirement, Wyeth could have taken direction for their classification from the fact that their respective independent claims were each included in the initial restriction requirement. See J.A. A461-65. Here, the dependent claims would naturally have been classified in a subset of the invention groups to which the claims they depend from belong. 3 3 While we do not hold that the notice requirement of Section 132 can never be satisfied where the classification of an independent claim is omitted from a restriction requirement, the fact that the omitted claims here were PFIZER INC. v. LEE 11 To illustrate, independent claim 98 was placed in eight groups in the original restriction requirement: Groups VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII and XIII. J.A. A46263. The classification of claims 103-106, which all depend from claim 98, were omitted from the first restriction requirement. In the second restriction requirement, the examiner classified claims 103-105 into Group VI, and claim 106 into Group XI. Responding to the corrected restriction requirement, Wyeth elected Group VI, and also asserted that claim 106 should be reclassified from Group XI into Group VI: Applicants hereby elect Group VI, claims 28-33, 37-44, 48, 54, 61-64, 91-98, 103-105, and 107-112 with traverse. Applicants respectfully submit that . . . . claim 106 depends from claim 98 and incor- porates all of the limitations in claim 98 that the Examiner has found sufficient to include claim 98 in Group VI. J.A. A582. The examiner accepted Appellants’ suggested classification of claim 106 into Group VI, at which point the examiner stated that the restriction requirement is “deemed to be proper and is made FINAL.” J.A. A589. At no time did the applicants dispute the examiner’s definitions of the 21 distinct inventions themselves. Because the descriptions of the inventions set forth in the original restriction requirement remained identical when the examiner issued the second restriction requirement, we agree with the PTO that it did not require significant guesswork for the applicants to determine where the inadvertently omitted claims belonged. Wyeth’s success in convincing the examiner to reclassify one of the omitted claims after the issuance of the correction further evi- limited to dependent claims is a factor that supports our conclusion that the initial restriction requirement was sufficiently informative to satisfy Section 132. 12 PFIZER INC. v. LEE dences that the initial restriction requirement did not preclude the applicants from determining where the omitted claims should have been placed and was not “so uninformative that it prevent[ed] the applicant from recognizing and seeking to counter the grounds for rejection.” Chester, 906 F.2d at 1578. Indeed, Appellants never identified any reason why they would not have been able to suggest the proposed classification of the omitted dependent claims in the first instance by responding with a traverse to the initial restriction requirement. Although the examiner did not classify the omitted six dependent claims into one of the 21 defined invention groups, the examiner made clear on the face of the initial restriction requirement that he intended to account for all pending claims. Specifically, the examiner noted in the office action Summary that “Claims 1-144 are pending in the application,” and that “Claims 1-144 are subject to restriction and/or election requirement.” J.A. A460. The original restriction requirement further articulated the reasons that the examiner believed that the ’894 application constituted 21 separate and independent “inventions.” J.A. A461-65. The examiner’s original restriction requirement thus satisfied the notice requirement of Section 132 because, pursuant to Chester, it provided both the “broad statutory basis” for the examiner’s rejection, namely, that “[r]estriction to one of the following inventions [was] required under 35 U.S.C. § 121,” and was sufficiently informative to allow Wyeth to counter the grounds for rejection. J.A. A461 (emphasis added); see also Univ. of Mass. v. Kappos, 903 F. Supp. 2d 77 (D.D.C. 2012) (“UMass”) (“[T]he A delay clock stops ticking when the first Office action is issued, regardless of what transpires thereafter.”). The Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) also supports the PTO’s position that the original restriction requirement satisfied the notice requirements of Section 132. The MPEP’s restriction form letter instructs PFIZER INC. v. LEE 13 PTO examiners to “look for omitted claims” in issuing a restriction requirement, and provides that a restriction requirement is not automatically invalid simply because it fails to account for a particular claim: While every claim should be accounted for, the omission to group a claim, or placing a claim in the wrong group will not affect the propriety of a final requirement where the requirement is oth- erwise proper and the correct disposition of the omitted or erroneously grouped claim is clear. MPEP § 814. Appellants argue that the examiner’s omission of the six dependent claims failed to comply with the MPEP’s guidance because it was not clear into which group the omitted claims should fall. As discussed above, however, we believe the initial restriction requirement sufficiently informed the applicants of the grounds for rejection and clearly defined the invention groups, such that the applicants could and in fact did determine into which group the omitted claims should be classified. Therefore, we reject Appellants’ argument. Appellants next argue that Section 121’s “safe harbor” provision supports their position that the examiner’s initial restriction requirement failed to satisfy Section 132. That provision protects patentees from certain types of invalidity attacks, such as obviousness-type double patenting, with respect to applications and/or patents that issue separately as a result of a PTO restriction requirement. As provided in Section 121: A patent issuing on an application with respect to which a requirement for restriction under this section has been made, or on an application filed as a result of such a requirement, shall not be used as a reference either in the Patent and Trademark Office or in the courts against a divi- sional application or against the original application or any patent issued on either of them, if the 14 PFIZER INC. v. LEE divisional application is filed before the issuance of the patent on the other application . . . . 35 U.S.C. § 121. Appellants argue that, to preserve immunity under the “safe harbor,” the patentee must ensure that the patent issuing from the divisional application passes a strict “consonance” test. Appellants Br. at 28-30. “Consonance requires that the line of demarcation between the ‘independent and distinct inventions’ that prompted the restriction requirement be maintained. . . . Where that line is crossed the prohibition of the third sentence of Section 121 does not apply.” Gerber Garment Tech., Inc. v. Lectra Sys., 916 F.2d 683, 688 (Fed. Cir. 1990). Appellants accordingly argue that, because the initial restriction requirement omitted certain claims, there was no clear “line of demarcation” between the various inventions, and there was thus no way in which the applicants could have taken advantage of Section 121’s immunity based on the examiner’s initial restriction requirement. As the PTO correctly notes, however, the examiner did nothing in the revised restriction requirement to modify the nature or description of the 21 distinct “inventions” already defined in the initial restriction requirement. And, importantly, the restriction requirement at issue was not made “final” until the applicants responded and the examiner took action on the response. Here, the applicants responded to the restriction requirement by electing an invention group and suggesting reclassification of certain dependent claims. Only when the examiner adopted the suggested regrouping was the examiner’s restriction requirement “made FINAL.” J.A. A589. Had Wyeth advocated for its suggested regrouping in response to the initial restriction requirement, rather than the corrected restriction requirement, there is nothing to suggest that Wyeth would not have been similarly successful. Thus, Appellants’ argument fails because the PFIZER INC. v. LEE 15 applicants here was never prevented from taking advantage of the Section 121 “safe harbor.” Other courts have reached similar conclusions regarding the requirements of Section 132. As the district court correctly noted, this case is similar to UMass. In UMass, the examiner issued a first restriction requirement, but failed to divide the antibody claims “based on whether the antibody . . . could specifically bind to either C. difficile toxin A or toxin B.” UMass, 903 F. Supp. 2d at 81 (internal quotation marks omitted). The applicant subsequently convinced the examiner that the restriction requirement was erroneous because of this failure, and the examiner issued a new restriction requirement. Id. Upon patent issuance, the PTO declined to award additional time for A Delay for the period between the initial restriction requirement and the corrected restriction requirement. UMass then brought suit requesting that the court award it this additional time for A Delay. The UMass court granted summary judgment in favor of the PTO, finding that the PTO’s decision declining to award time for additional A Delay was neither arbitrary nor capricious. See id. at 86-87. In so holding, the UMass court explained that the prosecution process involves a “back and forth” process wherein applicants advocate for the broadest and strongest claims, and examiners provide reasons for rejecting unsupported or unpatentable claims. Id. at 86. While the process of patent prosecution often involves changes in both the applicant’s and examiner’s positions, an examiner’s reissuance of an office action in response to an applicant’s suggestion does not automatically mean that an application has been “delayed” for purposes of patent term adjustment. Id. at 86. These principles are not controverted by the two cases upon which Appellants rely, In re: Patent No. 7,803,385, Matthew C. Coffee, Decision on Application For Patent Term Adjustment, May 24, 2012 (“Oncolytics”) and Janssen Pharmaceutica, N.V. v. Rea, 928 F. Supp. 2d 103 16 PFIZER INC. v. LEE (D.D.C. 2013). We need not determine whether those cases were decided correctly. Janssen and Oncolytics are distinguishable from the present scenario because in both cases the examiner sua sponte rescinded and replaced the issued restriction requirements without explanation and without prompting from the applicants. See Oncolytics, J.A. A2151-52; Janssen, 928 F. Supp. 2d at 104. Finding that the examiners’ actions in Janssen were outside the normal “give-and-take process” of patent prosecution, the PTO awarded the applicants their requested time for PTA delay. See In re: Patent No. 7,741,356, Breslin et al., Decision Upon Remand and Reconsideration of Patent Term Adjustment and Notice of Intent to Issue Certificate of Correction, J.A. A2403; see also Oncolytics, J.A. A2154 (awarding PTA for A Delay). Here, similar to UMass, and in contrast to Janssen and Oncolytics, the applicants’ and examiner’s exchanges concerning the challenged restriction requirement were part of the typical “back and forth” process of patent prosecution. The underlying “purpose of PTA is to ‘compensate patent applicants for certain reductions in patent term that are not the fault of the applicant,’ not to guarantee the correctness of the agency’s every decision.” UMass, 903 F. Supp. 2d at 86 (citing H.R. Rep. No. 106464, at 125 (1999) (Conf. Rep.)) (emphasis added). As explained above, because the initial restriction requirement placed the applicants on notice of “the broad statutory basis for [the rejection of their] claims,” Chester, 906 F.2d at 1578, the restriction requirement satisfied the notice requirement of Section 132. Thus, we conclude that Appellants’ alleged delay is not the type of error for which the Act was intended to compensate.