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Prosecution Disclaimer
Under United States patent law a prosecution disclaimer is a statement made by a patent applicant during examination of a patent application which can limit the scope of protection provided by the resulting patent. It is one type of file-wrapper estoppel, the other being prosecution history estoppel. In practice Whenever an applicant makes a clear and unambiguous argument that a claim does not cover a certain feature, this argument becomes binding on the applicant and the applicant cannot later argue in court that the claim would cover such a feature. Coverage of that feature is considered "disclaimed" by the applicant and cannot be recovered. The scope of the resulting patent is narrower than it might be if the applicant had said nothing. Prosecution disclaimer ensures that an applicant cannot obtain a patent by arguing that its claimed invention is narrow, and then turn around and enforce that patent against competitors with an argument that it is broader. Historical basis and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Patent Law
Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limited time (usually, 20 years) from profiting of a patented technology without the consent of the patent-holder. Specifically, it is the right to exclude others from: making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing, inducing others to infringe, applying for an FDA approval, and/or offering a product specially adapted for practice of the patent. United States patent law is codified in Title 35 of the United States Code, and authorized by the U.S. Constitution, in Article One, section 8, clause 8, which states: Patent law is designed to encourage inventors to disclose their new technology to the world by offering the incentive of a limited-time monopoly on the technology. For U.S. utility patents, this limited-time term of patent i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patent Prosecution
Patent prosecution describes the interaction between applicants and their representatives, and a patent office with regard to a patent, or an application for a patent. Broadly, patent prosecution can be split into pre-grant prosecution, which involves arguing before, and sometimes negotiation with, a patent office for the grant of a patent, and post-grant prosecution, which involves issues such as post-grant amendment and opposition. Patent prosecution is distinct from patent litigation, which describes legal action relating to the infringement of patents. The rules and laws governing patent prosecution are often laid out in manuals released by the Patent Offices of various governments, such as the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) in the United States, or the Manual of Patent Office Practice (MOPOP) in Canada. Pre-grant prosecution Preparation of an application To obtain patent rights for an inventor, the practitioner typically first drafts an application by inte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patent Application
A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and related correspondence. It is the combination of the document and its processing within the administrative and legal framework of the patent office. To obtain the grant of a patent, a person, either legal or natural, must file an application at a patent office with the jurisdiction to grant a patent in the geographic area over which coverage is required. This is often a national patent office, but may be a regional body, such as the European Patent Office. Once the patent specification complies with the laws of the office concerned, a patent may be granted for the invention described and claimed by the specification. The process of "negotiating" or "arguing" with a patent office for the grant of a patent, and interaction with a patent offic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A patent is not the grant of a right to make or use or sell. It does not, directly or indirectly, imply any such right. It grants only the right to exclude others. The supposition that a right to make is created by the patent grant is obviously inconsistent with the established distinctions between generic and specific patents, and with the well-known fact that a very considerable portion of the patents granted are in a field covered by a former relatively generic or basic patent, are tributary to such earlier patent, and cannot be practiced unless by license thereunder." – ''Herman v. Youngstown Car Mfg. Co.'', 191 F. 579, 584–85, 112 CCA 185 (6th Cir. 1911) In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
File-wrapper Estoppel
Prosecution history estoppel, also known as file-wrapper estoppel, is a term used to indicate that a person who has filed a patent application, and then makes narrowing amendments to the application to accommodate the patent law, may be precluded from invoking the doctrine of equivalents to broaden the scope of their claims to cover subject matter ceded by the amendments. Although primarily a U.S. term, questions of whether, or the extent to which the prosecution history should be relevant for determining the extent of protection of a patent also arise outside the U.S. Canada On December 13, 2018, new section 53.1 of the Patent Act makes prosecution history evidence admissible before the Court for the purposes of claim construction. Patents in Canada are subject to a purposive construction, which relies on reading both the claims and the specifications to determine the scope of a patent, and extrinsic evidence is not permitted. Therefore, the Canadian courts emphatically rejec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosecution History Estoppel
Prosecution history estoppel, also known as file-wrapper estoppel, is a term used to indicate that a person who has filed a patent application, and then makes narrowing amendments to the application to accommodate the patent law, may be precluded from invoking the doctrine of equivalents to broaden the scope of their claims to cover subject matter ceded by the amendments. Although primarily a U.S. term, questions of whether, or the extent to which the prosecution history should be relevant for determining the extent of protection of a patent also arise outside the U.S. Canada On December 13, 2018, new section 53.1 of the Patent Act makes prosecution history evidence admissible before the Court for the purposes of claim construction. Patents in Canada are subject to a purposive construction, which relies on reading both the claims and the specifications to determine the scope of a patent, and extrinsic evidence is not permitted. Therefore, the Canadian courts emphatically reje ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified," ''Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen'', 244 U.S. 205, 222 (1917) (Oliver Wendell Holmes, dissenting). By the early 20th century, legal professionals had come to reject any idea of a higher or natural law, or a law above the law. The law arises through the act of a sovereign, whether that sovereign speaks through a legislature, executive, or judicial officer. The defining characteristic of common law is that it arises as precedent. Common law courts look to the past decisions of courts to synthesize the legal principles of past cases. '' Stare decisis'', the principle that cases should be decided according to consistent principled rules so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doctrine Of Equivalents
The doctrine of equivalents is a legal rule in many (but not all) of the world's patent systems that allows a court to hold a party liable for patent infringement even though the infringing device or process does not fall within the literal scope of a patent claim, but nevertheless is equivalent to the claimed invention. U.S. Judge Learned Hand has described its purpose as being "to temper unsparing logic and prevent an infringer from stealing the benefit of the invention". Standards for determining equivalents Germany German courts typically apply a three-step test known as Schneidmesser's questions. These questions are: #Does the variant solve the problem underlying the invention with means that objectively have the same effect? #Would the person skilled in the art, using the common general knowledge, have realised at the priority date that the variant has the same effect? #Are the considerations which the skilled person takes into account for the variant in the light of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disclaimer (patent)
In patent law, a disclaimer are words identifying, in a claim, subject-matter that is not claimed or another writing disclaiming rights ostensibly protected by the patent. By extension, a disclaimer may also mean the amendment consisting in introducing a negative limitation in an existing claim, i.e. "an amendment to a claim resulting in the incorporation therein of a 'negative' technical feature, typically excluding from a general feature specific embodiments or areas". The allowability of disclaimers is subject to particular conditions, which may vary widely from one jurisdiction to another. Origins Possibly the earliest mention of patent disclaimers was in the British " Letters Patent and Trademark Amendment Act 1835", in the sense of a right to renounce one's patent monopoly or a part thereof. That right was subject to safeguards to make sure that the disclaimer was a true renunciation, rather than an extension of the monopoly. In 1865, in a case before the House of Lords, ''Ral ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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