Patent Amendments and Prosecution History Estoppel Under Festo

On November 29, 2000, the Federal Circuit retroactively reduced the value of nearly 1.2 million unexpired United States patents by announcing a new rule for the somewhat obscure doctrine of prosecution history estoppel. Designed to foster clarity in patent applications, this new pronouncement in Festo Corp v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co. allows for easy copying of some patented inventions and reduces patent owner\u27s ability to prove infringement. This article outlines the change in the law and discusses the positive and negative consequences of the decision

Patent Boundaries

A patent grants a limited right to exclude others from practicing an invention within the United States, its territories and possessions. Much has been written about the limits of the patent grant and how to determine what the protected invention may be. At the same time, scholars have not systemically analyzed the geographic limitations of United States patents, a critical component of a patentee’s limited right. A patent’s geographical scope is not simple to discern. Commentators have neither analyzed the patent boundaries collectively nor delineated the scope of patent sovereignty on land, in the air and at sea. Technology has spread to every corner of the earth, bringing once hostile territory under the spell of deep water oil drilling, satellite communication systems, within the reach of mobile phone technology and beyond the scope of our current understanding of patent law. United States patents are only enforceable within the United States, which now extends from the International Space Station to the Outer Continental Shelf of the United States. As the limits of technology and geography increase, the delineation of the patent boundaries of the United States becomes increasingly important

The X Patents: Patents Issued under the Patent Acts of 1790 & 1793

The earliest United States patents— sometimes called “name and date patents” because they were not numbered—are distinctive in many respects. Patent specifications were not required to include claims until the Patent Act of 1870. Moreover, while the 1790 Act required a substantive examination by a Patent Board, that requirement ended with the 1793 Act, when it was deemed too burdensome. Thereafter the evaluation of the sufficiency of patent specifications was left to the courts

Priority of Invention in United States Patents: From the Paris Convention to GATT

Imagine the following: It\u27s New Year\u27s Eve, 1994, and as twilight falls you start to clean off your desk and get ready to go home. On top of your Out tray is a copy of a patent application for American Corporation that you filed with the Patent and Trademark Office last week. A-Corp., one of your largest clients, is the nation\u27s largest manufacturer of business office furniture. The patent application is for A-Corp\u27s new Security Cabinet, a device that protects sensitive computer disks and video- tapes from electromagnetic contamination. The Security Cabinet was unveiled at an office supply trade show in Las Vegas over the summer, and sales have been brisk ever since. Both the R & D and Sales departments at A-Corp. consider the success of the Security Cabinet to be a feather in their cap. As a result, the company would like to develop an entire Security Cabinet product line. However, before making such an investment, A-Corp. wanted to acquire patent protection for the device to secure its position at the top of the market. The phone rings as you remember that drafting the claims and completing the application for the Security Cabinet were routine. On the other end of the line is the head of A-Corp.\u27s R & D department. Have you filed the patent application for the Security Cabinet yet? he asks, almost out of breath. You tell him that the application was delivered to the Patent and Trademark Office in Arlington just this week. Well, he says, we may have a problem. My staff keeps tabs on the market to see what kind of office products are out there, and we\u27ve found two other companies that are selling rip-offs of our Security Cabinet! One is made here in the U.S. and the other is made in Canada. And they both say \u27U.S. Patent Applied For\u27 on them! What are we going to do? The above account opens a Pandora\u27s box of possibilities that may help or hinder the fictional A-Corp and its patent counsel in its pursuit of patent protection. Disputes often arise between parties who independently claim patent rights in an invention. The protectionistic laws by which these disputes traditionally have been resolved have changed dramatically in the past twelve months and, because of recently enacted legislation, will change dramatically again in the near future. This paper provides a context in which to examine inventorship disputes by surveying the fundamentals of United States patent law. In addition, this document analyzes the traditional manner in which inventorship disputes have been resolved, as well as the extraordinary impact recent changes in the law will have on the resolution of patent disputes in the United States

Chemistry

published or submitted for publicatio

Process for preparing sterile solid propellants Patent

Using ethylene oxide in preparation of sterilized solid rocket propellants and encapsulating material

Gimbaled, partially submerged rocket nozzle Patent

Gimbaled partially submerged nozzle for solid propellant rocket engines for providing directional contro

Line cutter Patent

Piston in bore cutter for severing parachute control lines and sealing cable hole to prevent water leakage into loa

Self-sealing, unbonded, rocket motor nozzle closure Patent

Flexible rocket motor nozzle closure device to aid ignition and protect rocket chamber from foreign object

Conical valve plug Patent

Conical valve plug for use with reactive cryogenic fluid