Under the patent statute, any person who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent,” subject to the...more
One of the benefits of a patent under the U.S. system is, for a limited time, the patent owner gets the exclusive right to manufacture, use and sell the invention. The public policy behind this is to create an incentive for...more
A valid priority claim can allow a patent application to benefit from the filing date of an earlier patent application so as to exclude certain prior art from consideration. The recent decision of the U.S. Federal Circuit in...more
Patent applicants who have filed a priority application (such as a U.S. Provisional application) may wish to abandon and then refile that priority application to extend the time available for filing a utility application. ...more
What are the dates to which prior art must adhere, in examination of claims in a continuation-in-part (CIP) nonprovisional patent application? Each claim in a CIP, whether independent or dependent, has its own priority date....more
In Inguran, LLC v. Premium Genetics (UK) Ltd., the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted Post Grant Review (PGR) proceedings in a patent granted from an AIA transition application based on its finding that at...more
In Dynamic Drinkware, LLC v. National Graphics, Inc., the Federal Circuit held that in order for a patent to qualify as prior art as of its provisional application filing date, the provisional application must support the...more
As noted in “Patents are of National Origin,” obtaining a patent in one country, does not give the owner of the patent worldwide protection for the invention. Instead, a patent application must be filed in or for each country...more