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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 a ... [...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 from 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. History 1623. England adopts Statute of Monopolies, which has been acknowledged as a legal predecessor of the US patent law. 1789. U.S. Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 authorizes Congress "to promote the Progress of . . . useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to . . . Inventors the exclusive Right to their . . . Discoveries." It is believed that, unlike most parts of the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patent Prosecution
Patent prosecution is the interaction between applicants and a patent office with regard to a patent application or a patent. The prosecution process is broadly divided into two phases: pre-grant and post-grant prosecution. Pre-grant prosecution includes the drafting and filing of patent applications, responding to patent office actions, and navigating the examination process to meet all legal requirements for patentability. This phase requires a strategic presentation of the invention's novelty and inventive step over existing technologies. Post-grant prosecution deals with activities that occur after a patent has been granted. This includes maintaining the patent, handling oppositions or challenges from third parties, and making amendments or corrections to the patent documentation. It ensures that the patent remains enforceable and continues to provide value to the patent holder. Patent prosecution is distinct from patent litigation, which describes legal action relating to ... [...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 claim (patent), 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 ... [...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 sufficiency of disclosure, 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 la ... [...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 reje ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Law
Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on precedent—judicial rulings made in previous similar cases. The presiding judge determines which precedents to apply in deciding each new case. Common law is deeply rooted in Precedent, ''stare decisis'' ("to stand by things decided"), where courts follow precedents established by previous decisions. When a similar case has been resolved, courts typically align their reasoning with the precedent set in that decision. However, in a "case of first impression" with no precedent or clear legislative guidance, judges are empowered to resolve the issue and establish new precedent. The common law, so named because it was common to all the king's courts across England, originated in the practices of the courts of the English kings in the centuries fo ... [...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 if the infringing device or process does not fall within the literal scope of a patent claim but is nevertheless equivalent to the claimed invention. In the United States, 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: #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 the meaning of t ... [...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, ''Ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
