by Dennis Crouch
Dynamic Drinkware v. National Graphics (Fed. Cir. 2015)
The underlying issue in this IPR-appeal is the effective date of prior art: How do we treat prior art patents and published applications that claim priority to provisional applications?
The patent being reviewed – National’s Patent No. 6,635,196 – was applied for on November 22, 2000 but claims priority to a provisional application filed in June of 2000. National was also able to show that by March 2000 the inventor had completed the invention and reduced-to-practice (RTP) the claimed lenticular lens insert.
The alleged prior art is U.S. Patent 7,153,555 (“Raymond”) was filed in May 2000 and but claims priority back to a February 2000 provisional application filing. The Raymond provisional is somewhat different from the later-filed non-provisional and so the question is whether the effective prior-art date stretches back to the provisional filing.
On its own, a provisional patent application does not qualify as “prior art” under 25 USC 102 (old or new) and the tens-of-thousands of provisional applications abandoned each year without any further patenting-action are not prior art. However, the Federal Circuit has indicated that (under pre-AIA 35 USC 102(e)) a later-filed non-provisional application will be given the prior-art date of the provisional filing (once the non-provisional is published or patented). Giacomini.
The somewhat convoluted 102(e) indicates that a US patent application becomes prior art once it is either published or issues as a patent. And, at that point, the reference is back-dated to the application’s filing date. Section 119(e) describes how an application having a priority claim back to a provisional patent application “shall have the same effect, as to such invention, as though filed on the date of the provisional application” so long as the provisional application sufficiently discloses the claimed invention under Section 112(a). Weaving these together in Giacomini, the court ruled that an issued patent will be considered prior art as of its provisional filing date – so long as the provisional provides written description support for the invention claimed in that issued patent. In considering the prior art status of Raymond, the PTAB examined the patent claims and compared them to the provisional disclosure — finding that the provisional did not provide adequate support for the claims.
Anyone who works with prior art knows that this setup is an oddball way to address the situation. A patent’s disclosure for prior art purposes should not depend upon what was claimed or not claimed but instead should focus on what was disclosed. My belief is that, once publicly available, all provisional applications should be considered prior art as of their filing dates.
The Federal Circuit merits discussion began by stepping through the process of challenging the prior art’s provenance:
- First the patent challenger raises the prior art and explains its priority claim (here, done in the IPR petition). Without further challenge, the patent would be deemed prior art as of its provisional filing date.
- Then the patentee can raise the argument that the provisional priority claim does not satisfy the Written Description. By satisfying this burden of presentation, the burden shifts back to the challenger.
- Finally, the patent challenger must prove that the provisional provides proper support.
Thus, once the issue is raised the court will (rebuttably) presume that the provisional does not provide adequate support. “[B]ecause the PTO does not examine priority claims unless necessary, the Board has no basis to presume that a reference patent is necessarily entitled to the filing date of its provisional application.” In Giacomini, Federal Circuit seemed to have implicitly come out the other way – counting the provisional as prior art without proof of WD satisfaction. Here, the court distinguished that situation by noting that Giacomini had waived that argument by failing to challenge the written description support.
As noted above, the rule here is that the prior art date of a patent (or patent application) stretches back to the provisional filing date if the provisional provides written description (and enabling?) support of the claims of that patent (or application). Confusing that rule, the patent challenger here focused on the particular disclosure-of-concern for its invalidity argument and showed that the disclosure was found in the provisional. Unfortunately, according to this odd rule, the challenger’s explanation is insufficient.
Nowhere, however, does Dynamic demonstrate support in the Raymond provisional application for the claims of the Raymond patent. That was Dynamic’s burden. A provisional application’s effectiveness as prior art depends on its written description support for the claims of the issued patent of which it was a provisional. Dynamic did not make that showing.
With the provisional filing date knocked-out for the Raymond prior art, the unpatentability case crumbled and thus, the Federal Circuit here confirmed patentability of the challenged claims.
= = = = =
- The result here is silly – and somewhat disturbing – that under the first-to-invent rule the second inventor gets a patent. Raymond came up with idea at issue first and disclosed it in a provisional patent application that eventually resulted in an issued patent. But, since Raymond’s non-provisional application included additional subject matter, the provisional disclosure no longer counts as effective prior art.
- The AIA rewrote Section 102 and re-codified the old 102(e) into 102(a)(2) and 102(d). The new rule is also a bit unclear — indicating that the disclosure found in a patent or published application will be given a prior art date of a priority filing document if the patent or application is entitled to so claim priority and the priority filing “describes the subject matter” being relied upon as prior art.
- One element that is unclear from this is whether being “entitled” to claim priority/benefit requires 112(a) support of the claims. The court explains in a footnote: “Because we refer to the pre-AIA version of § 102, we do not interpret here the AIA’s impact on Wertheim in newly designated § 102(d).”
-
Post-AIA: Of course, regardless of the Wertheim issue above, the outcome of this case flips post-AIA because the prior art cannot be avoided simply by showing an earlier date of invention or reduction to practice. Thus, the patentee would lose here because its priority filing date is subsequent to the prior art’s effective date.
- My take is that, once the provisional becomes public that the law should regard a provisional application’s prior-art status as of its filing date. The PTO should also be creating a public database of provisional application filings that can be searched and relied upon as a prior art tool. For American companies, the failure to make this change means that many of their provisional application disclosures often will not prevent third-parties (half of which are non-US companies) from obtaining patents on identical innovations.