- Worksharing: Website of the five IP Offices: http://www.fiveipoffices.org.
- GoogleNexis?: Google Scholar now includes judicial opinions and law review articles. [Link] The site does a nice job of ranking opinions according to citation history. However, as with their patent database, Google’s caselaw database does not appear to be kept up-to-date. The search features will be useful as a powerful free first-cut, but attorneys will not use the site for any type of comprehensive search or full citation-check. As Law School Librarian Richard Leiter wrote, “I don’t think that West or Lexis have much to worry about.”
- ABANexis?: If you want to search only law reviews (that are available online), you might look at the ABA’s Search Engine (powered by Google). [Link]
- Is the 1981 CCPA case of Rasmussen still good law? [Updated with the right year of the case]
“we’re gonna be dealin’ on them drugs.”
If it gets rid of the delay between when an image shows up and when the text finally appears in our East browser windows every afternoon, that’ll be fine with me…
“we’re gonna be dealin’ on them drugs.”
If it gets rid of the delay between when an image shows up and when the text finally appears up in our East browser window that occurs every afternoon, that’ll be fine with me…
” So how are we supposed to develop a new, world leading search and examination support tool with no money?”
At the last meeting it was announced that to boost revenue we’re gonna be dealin’ on them drugs.
I have an inquiry about Rule 57(a). A quickie summary of this inquiry might be “inclusion v. incorporation”.
Specifically, I want to inquire about amending a pending USA spec to explicitly include material that had been properly incorporated by reference (a foreign priority app, not a USA app). This material was, at filing, somehow “inadvertently omitted” from that pending USA spec.
Does anyone know of any case law or disputes in this area?
It seems straightforward to me, but perhaps I am oversimplifying. To me, if the incorporation by reference is satisfactory, my understanding of Rule 57(a) is that the pending spec can be amended to include the additional paragraphs.
Thanks for any remarks.
Does any one know how the US is going to spearhead the “•Common Search and Examination Support Tools (lead: USPTO)”?
The goals of this sound fantastic to a patent searcher, assuming the public is included in the phrase “•The Common Search Environment will be available for 24/7 operation for examiners and the IP customers worldwide”
As Kappos and his CIO have said many times, the US does not have the money to update their 12 year old servers and search tools as it is. So how are we supposed to develop a new, world leading search and examination support tool with no money?
Noise, in 1952, if not before, that “judicial law” became the legislative law. Lilly does not agree, in essence, or in any other fashion, with any of the nonsense Ariad is making up. They might concede, when hard pressed, that the court did recently “expand the scope” of the WD requirement in the last decades. That is simply history, and I doubt they’d deny it. It is precisely that expansion on which they are relying to win the case at issue. That is also the weakest point for Ariad to have attacked this case, and they’re DOIN IT WRONG by going overboard on attacking the traditional WD requirement as a whole. Anything else in Ariad’s arguments is fantastical to Lilly, and to the rest of nearly everyone. (including your grammatical “analysis” that consisted of nothing more than mere assertions) That is, it is simple nonsense made up so that they’d have a chance to win the case.
So, in essence, Lilly is agreeing with Ariad on proper determination…
In essence, you are desperate.
Malcolm,
As usual, you yourself are caught wanking a strawman. I noticed you neglected to mention this point:
“Lilly contends that any disruption to this requirement should be made by Congress, not this en banc Court.”
– yet, the bulk of the Lily arguement is about Judicial Law, NOT Legisilative Law. Ariad’s argument is heavily Legislative Law based. So, in essence, Lilly is agreeing with Ariad on proper determination…
“The Supremes held the patent invalid…”
Ned, does this mean that all the claims were found invalid, including the originally filed ones?
More generally, unless all the claims of a patent are found invalid, wouldn’t a patent still be “valid?”
Thank you.
The court went on to say that flexibility was a matter of degree, and if flexibility was intended to be the invention, it had to be described as filed.
A very well-reasoned decision.
Perhaps, but the oral argument in Ariad extensively discussed, I believe, this case:
link to supreme.justia.com
Schriber-Schroth Co. v. Cleveland Trust Co., 305 U.S. 47 (1938)
The case involved a piston having a web. The only novelty was the claimed flexibility of the web. However, flexibility was not described in the patent as filed. A claim to flexibility was added by amendment after another patent was issued describing the web as flexible. The patent owner argued that flexibility was inherent with webs.
The Supremes held the patent invalid under the written description requirement of the statute. Among other things, the Supreme Court said the statute required,
“a written description of [his invention] . . . and of the manner and process of making, constructing . . . and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art . . . to . . . construct . . . and use the same, and, in case of a machine, he shall explain the principle thereof, and the best mode in which he has contemplated applying that principle, so as to distinguish it from other inventions. . . . ”
Page 305 U. S. 57
The object of the statute is to require the patentee to describe his invention so that others may construct and use it after the expiration of the patent, and
“to inform the public during the life of the patent of the limits of the monopoly asserted, so that it may be known which features may be safely used or manufactured without a license and which may not.”
The court went on to say that flexibility was a matter of degree, and if flexibility was intended to be the invention, it had to be described as filed.
Rasmussen cites In re Smythe, which was a 1973 CCPA decision. Maybe that’s what Dennis means?
Rasmussen had to do with confining Muncie Gear to “new matter.” However, the Supreme Court repeatedly held that a failure to indicate that something was an invention in the specification as filed was fatal to claiming it later. Only two years prior, the Supreme Court said the same thing in a case argued at oral argument yesterday in Ariad. I can’t remember the case name right now, but when I have time, I will post it.
Mr. Leiter is right, but ought to have finished that statement with a “… yet.”
Nice write-up of the Ariad v. Lilly oral arguments here:
link to kilpatrickstockton.com
Includes this noteworthy passage:
Ariad’s arguments primarily revolved around cannons of statutory construction. Ariad stressed that the single requirement of the first paragraph of Section 112 includes identifying the invention and instructing a skilled artisan how to make and use that intervention. During Ariad’s presentation, some of the judges even suggested that Ariad’s seemingly circular argument was in agreement with its opponent’s position or, at most, draws the line in a different place.
So much for the punctuation theory. Nobody could have predicted that would be a major loser. Well done, wankers.
DC asks:
“Is the 1973 CCPA case of Rasmussen still good law?:”
Are you referring to the 1981 CCPA Rasmussen case? That case seems to be topical, and I didn’t see the 1973 case on google.
altlaw ftw. google might take a few years before they get that portion of their site up and going.
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