Patent Law

Oops

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Allied Signal, owner of 6,287,955, failed to pay its maintenance fee, abandoning the patent. Changing its mind after the fact, the lament was that the lapse was unintentional.

In short, when this patent was not deemed to be profitable, a plurality of employees of the Assignee determined that this patent should be allowed to expire, and an intentional decision was made that the maintenance fee should not be submitted to the Office. However, now that it has been learned that there is commercial interest in this patent, the Assignee seeks to characterize the intentional decision to allow this patent to expire as "unintentional."

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on June 17, 2008 (boomark / email).