Tag: claims
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Can Post Grant Review Enhance Patent Quality?
We have all heard about the new post grant review (PGR) aspect of the patent reform legislation. It is supposed to provide a mechanism for review of the patent initiated in the first year of the patent’s issue. Please indulge me for a bit as I explore what this may mean for the patent system as a…
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Petition Granted for Rehearing en banc of Akamai Technologies v. Limelight Networks
On April 20, 2011, the Federal Circuit granted the petition by Akamai Technologies for rehearing en banc its appeal in Akamai Technologies, Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc. The order vacated the earlier opinion of December 20, 2010. The order includes a request to file new briefs addressing this question: If separate entities each perform separate…
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Federal Circuit Decision in In re Tanaka
You might recall that we discussed the BPAI decision in In re Yasuhito Tanaka in an earlier post. On April 15, the Federal Circuit reversed the BPAI decision and remanded the matter for further proceedings in accordance with the opinion. The Federal Circuit held that a patent owner that retains original patent claims and adds new narrower claims in…
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In re Tanaka
Suppose you issued a patent with several claims, including dependent claims. Now, suppose you wished you had claimed and issued a certain dependent claim, but did not have it in the originally issued patent. That new dependent claim is narrower than your independent claim that issued, so this is not a case of a broadening reissue. Now…
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The Effect of Amendment in Reexam on Past Damages
Generally speaking, patent claims that are confirmed in reexamination without substantive changes retain all of the damages they would have obtained as if there was no reexam. [Note that there are always exceptional situations. For example, there are patent cases where a claim was not amended, but its scope was deemed to have been altered by cancellation…
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Introduction: Why all of the interest in reexamination?
How many times have you heard: “They got a patent on that! There’s nothing new about that. It’s been out there for years!”? For those versed in patent matters, that is not a surprising reaction to certain issued patents. The patent issuance procedure in the U.S. relies on examination of a patent application. The sources and tools for examination are increasing…