Intellectual Property Law

Background of the Invention (or lack thereof): Rule 56 Implications?

Posted on May 31, 2007
A few weeks back I spoke about some attorneys' tendency to draft their applications in such a way that it seems as if they are trying to 'hide the invention' from the examiner.Why would they try to do that??Well, there are, obviously, reasons why doing just that is in the attorneys' and the inventors' best interests, even if it makes life tough on the examiner who has to cope with it...

Advice from (or, rather, for) the Other Side

Posted on May 20, 2007
There's a new patent prosecution blog out there. Michael Kondoudis' Patentably Defined.I ran across this blog recently, but hadn't had the chance to get a post written before Russ Krajec at Anything Under The Sun beat me to it.The stated purpose of the blog is to discuss 'patent prosecution strategies to help achieve allowance of claims that patentably define over cited art'...

Living the Dream

Posted on May 14, 2007
The PTO is holding a series of job fairs over the next few weeks. So if you'd like to join those of us here 'living the dream', listen up.Weekly interview sessions in HQ in Alexandria on Tuesdays and Thursdays between May 8th (yes, I'm a bit late here) and 24th, as well as June 5th and 7th...

Playing "Hide the Invention"

Posted on May 07, 2007
There are instances, as an examiner, when you've got an application whose disclosure and claims have been written in a way that makes it seem as if the applicant might be trying to hide the invention from you.The Background and Summary sections are vague and/or next to non-existent...

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A Supreme Court Smackdown

Posted on April 30, 2007
KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc.Well, the decision finally came down.I'm not really a student of Supreme Court decisions [yet]. However, work as an examiner and you can't help but become one eventually.Nevertheless, from my (uneducated) standpoint, this opinion seems to be more, well, 'severe', than I expected...

A Shot Across the Bow

Posted on April 24, 2007
A couple of weeks ago, representatives of a number of patent examiner unions around the world submitted an open letter to the heads of their respective patent offices.The basic point of their letter is that policies seem to be increasingly dictated by the need to reduce the growing backlog (more production!), and it's taking a toll on the quality of examination and consequently on examiners' job satisfaction...

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