Posts Tagged: "AIA traps for the unwary"

Not every claimed invention will be able to be re-patented, but there will undoubtedly be some that will be able to be re-patented. This is possible thanks to 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C). So, if a patent or published patent application is commonly owned it may not be considered prior art against an identical set of claims in a subsequently filed patent application. Of course, 102(b)(2)(C) does not eliminate prior art that qualifies under 102(a)(1), but 102(a)(2) makes the patent application prior art as of its effective filing date of the claimed invention. So if you keep your invention secret and file a patent application it will be secret (and not prior art) up until the application publishes 18 months after filing. If you then re-file a second application with identical claims before publication of the first application there would be no 102(a)(1) prohibition. 102(a)(2) would make that first filing prior art as of its effective filing date, but if you remove 102(a)(2) through common ownership then a common owner would be able to effectively extend their patent term by up to 18 months; longer if publication doesn’t occur at 18 months.

In perhaps lesser known fashion Congress made two significant, but limited, statutory changes to what is considered patent eligible subject matter. In a bizarre circumstance Congress chose not to render tax strategy patents patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101. Rather they chose a far more convoluted route. Tax strategy patents are still patent eligible subject matter pursuant to Section 101, but for purposes of evaluating an invention under section 102 or 103 of title 35, any strategy for reducing, avoiding, or deferring tax liability, whether known or unknown at the time of the invention or application for patent, is deemed insufficient to differentiate a claimed invention from the prior art.

Let’s take a step back and consider the nuance of the so-called grace period that remains under the AIA. Under the new law we know that in some cases an inventor who publishes information about his or her invention will not be prevented from obtaining a patent if someone obtained or derived a subsequent disclosure from the inventor. The USPTO has told us that the second party, the deriving party, does not have to publish something that is verbatim in order for the true first inventor to be able to prove that the second party is a deriving party. In other words, the USPTO is telling us what the second party does not have to do in order for the first, disclosing inventor to claim entitlement to the grace-period. Unfortunately, stating something in the negative is not particularly illuminating as any patent practitioner can tell you. Saying something is “non-planar” is useful information but it doesn’t exactly tell you what that something is, instead it only removes one of an endless number of possibilities.

Consider the following: On Friday, March 15, 2013, an applicant could file a U.S. patent application covering an invention that was the subject of a publication provided the publication was dated less than 1 year earlier. This was true even if the publication was by another individual or entity that independently arrived at the invention on his or her own. Effective Saturday, March 16, 2013, if another individual or entity independently arrived at the invention and published an article before the first inventor filed the first inventor who filed will be unable to obtain a patent unless the subsequent disclosure was nearly identical to the first disclosure.