Patent - Page 7
This is FindLaw's collection of Patent articles, part of the Intellectual Property section of the Corporate Counsel Center. Law articles in this archive are predominantly written by lawyers for a professional audience seeking business solutions to legal issues. Start your free research with FindLaw.
Intellectual Property
Patent Articles
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On March 3, 1997, the United States Supreme Court rendered its anxiously awaited patent law opinion in Warner-Jenki. -
Recent trial court decisions have exposed an Achilles' heel in licensing regimes for research method patents. In Bayer AG v. Housey Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 169 F. Supp.2d 328 (D. Del. 2001), and in Trustees of Columbia University in City of New York v. Roche Diagnostics GmbH, 150 F. Supp.2d 191 (D. Mass. 2001), trial courts have sharply limited infringement liability for offshore use of patented methods, where the products introduced as the fruits of this research are ultimately manufactured without use of the patented methods. It remains to be seen what reception the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will give to this issue. -
A recent law allows businesses to create more value simply by filing a patent application. The 18-month rule deprives patent applications of their secrecy 18 months after they are filed, but in exchange, the patent applicant can recover damages from an infringer starting from the date of publication. The bargain is somewhat more complex, but you can improve your bottom line by maximizing the benefits of the 18-month rule and avoiding its pitfalls. -
Any patent issued on an application filed on or after June 8, 1995 will have a term which begins on the date the patent issues and ends 20 years from the earliest U.S. filing date claimed by the patent. Therefore, any patent issuing on a divisional, continuation or continuation-in-part (CIP) application filed after June 7, 1995 will have its 20 year term measured from the U.S. filing date of the parent application or any earlier grandparent, etc. filing date. -
After January 1, 1996, the non-U.S. WTO applicant for U.S. patent protection will have the advantage of being able. -
The judicial doctrine of claim differentiation permits courts to presume that claims cover different inventions. T. -
The determination of whether a patent claim has been infringed requires a two-step analysis. First, the court must interpret the asserted claims as a matter of law to determine their scope and meaning. Second, the trier of fact must judge whether each claim element, as construed by the court, is present in the accused device. -
The defense of unenforceability based upon a patentee's inequitable conduct, when applicable, can be a powerful one for an accused infringer. Typically, the defense is based upon the patentee's non-disclosure of important information to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") while the application was being processed. To prevail with the defense, the accused infringer must show that the information is material, and was deceptively withheld. -
On June 6, 2003, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit seemingly breathed new life into research tool patents when it held that the use of patented peptides for drug discovery was not exempt from infringement under the "safe harbor" provision of 35 U.S.C. 271(e)(1). -
Michael Bettinger, leader of the Intellectual Property Litigation Group at Preston Gates & Ellis LLP, discussed the Markman hearing, which in patent litigation determines the meaning and scope of the patent claims in dispute. In the Supreme Court's Markman decision, Mr. Bettinger explained, the court held that meaning of patent claims is to be determined by judges as a matter of law, not by juries. According to Mr. Bettinger, it is now the single biggest event that happens in a patent case prior to trial.