There are essentially five patentability requirements. In order for a claimed invention to be patented each of these requirements must be satisfied. The claimed invention must be (1) comprised of patent eligible subject matter; (2) useful; (3) novel; (4) non-obvious; and (5) adequately described. The first three of these requirements were discussed generally in Patentability Overview: When can an Invention be Patented? published last week. This article picks up with an overview of the law of obviousness and what constitutes an adequate description.

The Nonobviousness Requirement – 35 U.S.C. 103

Obviousness is a critical element to patentability. In essence, even if the applicant can demonstrate patentable subject matter, utility and novelty, the patent will not issue if the invention is trivial. In order to determine if an invention is trivial it is necessary to see if there was motivation in the prior art to do what the inventor has done. If the prior art does not explicitly, and with identity of elements, teach the invention, the patent applicant may still be thwarted if there are a number of references that, when combined, would produce the claimed invention.

The goal of a patent application is to teach others how to make and use the invention. But why would an inventor want to describe their invention to the point where others could simply copy them? The simple reason is that the US patent laws require such a description. The more complete answer is that such a description is required because in order for the government to grant a patent Congress has said that you must describe your invention so that others will be able to benefit from it, learn from it and advance it moving forward. The only way to do this is by describing your invention with great care and detail.

When you file a patent application it is always necessary to file an application that completely and clearly describes the invention so that others would be able to understand the invention. For many, particularly new inventors, business executives and newbie patent attorneys or agents, it is difficult to understand the so-called description requirement to patentability. It seems easy enough to comprehend as a general matter, but it is overly simplistic to merely say that a patent application must describe the invention. Those who fall down with respect to this adequate description requirement do so because they do not have a full conceptualization of what it is that they have as a protectable invention.

In July I wrote Describing Your Invention Completely in a Patent Application, which focused on the type of information you want to include to capture the full glory of your invention.  This article is a follow-up to that, focusing this time on what the law requires and why, concluding with suggestions to help in breaking through the idea and getting to something more tangible.  Reading these two articles in conjunction should give a more complete understanding of what is required and how to get from idea to patentable invention.

I start this tale observing a central reality: Inventors are creative people who observe a problem and envision a solution.  Practically anyone can be an inventor because the first step on the path to inventing is the generation of an idea.  Unfortunately, ideas cannot be patented and for many individuals the path to invention stops right there.  But it doesn’t have to stop there.  Frequently you just need some help collecting thoughts and a little push in the right direction.  In fact, many people are surprised by what is required to be an inventor and have an invention that is capable of being patented.

Lately I have been this “educational” mindset more than is usual. Not only am I gearing up for the run of summer Patent Bar Review Courses, which begin next week in New York City, but at the beginning of June I will be teaching a Patent Prosecution course for a week at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois. What better topic to revisit than the importance of using the right language when describing an invention and dealing with an examiner. Patent attorneys darn near need to be magicians when it comes to language, which is the primary tool of our craft. Picking the right word and the right way to say things is critical. Even more critical, perhaps, is not saying the wrong thing, or worse yet saying something that is clear but not what you intended.

After the Federal Circuit ruled in Ariad Pharmaceuticals v. Eli Lilly there is a separate and distinct “written description” requirement in the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112, some may have thought that all might be quiet on the “written description” front.  But the recent case of Crown Packaging Technology, Inc. v. Ball Metal Beverage Container Corp., suggests that all may no longer be quiet on that front.  In fact, I’ll express the “heretical” view that the Federal Circuit missed the real “written description” issue in this case, namely what is (or should be) the impact of the “characterised in that” (or as we Americans would phrase it “characterized in that”) language used in the common patent specification of the two patents involved in this case.

One of the biggest problems that inventors face when setting out to define their invention is with describing what the law refers to as “alternative embodiments of the invention.” Most inventors are quite good at describing exactly what they have invented. The invention is your work and you know it best, so it is not surprising that most inventors can (with enough effort) explain the preferred version of the invention; what the law refers to as the “preferred embodiment.” Nevertheless, it is absolutely essential to think outside the box when describing your invention in any patent application. Stop and think about different ways that your invention can be made or used, even if you deem them to be inferior. Failure to disclose alternatives will almost certainly foreclose your ability to say those alternatives are covered by your disclosure, which will prevent any issued patent from covering those undefined variations. This may not seem like a big deal, but history has shown that it is critical. If you are lucky enough to have invented something of great importance there will be a number of individuals and companies trying to capitalize on the opportunity you have created. If you dismiss variations or entirely different and unique embodiments then you are leaving those to the individuals and/or companies that would seek to capitalize on a product or process that is similar to your own, but not specifically covered by your patent claims. So what can you do?

The United States Patent and Trademark Office is radically updating the Patent Bar Examination starting in April 2011.  Since I teach the PLI Patent Bar Review Course that has required John White and I to revise our materials.  One of the new things tested will be the recently released 112 Guidelines, which are full of great information and explanation, particularly relating to computer implemented processes; what many would call software.  Being the “software guy” one of my responsibilities has been to work on the 112 Guidelines and the Bilski Guidelines for the PLI course.  So I thought I would take this opportunity to write, once again, about how to disclose computer implemented inventions to satisfy the disclosure requirements, which are embodied specifically in 35 U.S.C. § 112.

The statutory requirements for computer-implemented inventions are the same as for all inventions.  That means that in order to be patentable the invention must meet the patent eligibility test in 35 U.S.C. § 101, the invention must be new (§ 102), it must be non-obvious (§ 103) and it must be adequately described (§ 112).  Since the United States Supreme Court announced its decision in Bilski v. Kappos, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has continually urged patent examiners to get beyond the § 101 inquiry except in extreme cases.  Prior to the Supreme Court’s Bilski decision many examiners would simply see a computer-implemented method and issue a blanket and rather non-specific rejection asserting that the invention was not patent eligible subject matter under § 101.  The USPTO focus on getting past § 101 and to the meat of the invention means that such rejections are no longer the norm.  It also means that the Patent Office is pushing the real question about whether an patentable invention is presented into the adequate description space pursuant to § 112.  Thus, a thorough and complete description is absolutely essential when your invention relates to a computer-implemented method, whether it is software, an Internet processes or a business method.

Since at least 1998 business methods have been patentable in the United States. This is thanks to the decision of the United States Court of Appeals in State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc., which categorically and unceremoniously did away with what had previously been come to be known as the business method exception to patentability. Essentially, the business method exception said that no method of doing business deserved patent protection. The Federal Circuit, per the iconic Judge Giles Sutherland Rich, pointed out that the business method exception had never been invoked by either the Federal Circuit or its predecessor court the CCPA. Furthermore, the case frequently cited for establishing the business method exception did not ultimately rely on that exception to deny patentability, meaning it was nothing more than dicta. The Court explained that “[s]ince the 1952 Patent Act, business methods have been, and should have been, subject to the same legal requirements for patentability as applied to any other process or method.”

Last week the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a ruling in Goeddel v. Sugano, which might be one of a dying breed should patent reform actually pass.  The case dealt with an appeal from an interference proceeding where the Board awarded priority based on a Japanese application.  The Federal Circuit, per Judge Newman, explained that it was inappropriate to say that the Japanese application demonstrated a constructive reduction to practice because the application merely would allow the skilled reader to “envision” the invention covered in the interference count.  If patent reform passes (and yes that could really happen) cases like Goeddel would become a thing of the past, although priority determinations like this one in Goeddel will certainly not go away.

Software is now and will remain patentable in the United States. Software patents have been vilified by many, but they have been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and upheld in federal courts across the United States. The much anticipated Bilski v. Kappos decision at the Supreme Court did nothing to slow down the patentability of software, and in fact even the original Federal Circuit decision wound up, as applied by the USPTO, to make it more likely that adequately written software patent applications would be granted and transformed into issued patents. What has changed over the last several years, however, is the amount of detail that must go into a software patent application in order to satisfy the adequate description requirements under US patent law. So don’t listen to anyone who tells you software cannot be patents in the United States; it certainly can, but it isn’t quite as easy as it used to be.

Redwood National Park, CA

Coming as no surprise, a majority of the en banc Federal Circuit just ruled in Ariad Pharmaceuticals v. Eli Lilly &Co. that there is a separate and distinct “written description” requirement in the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112.  See Some Heretical Thoughts on the Ariad Case: What Does “Any Person Skilled in the Art” Mean and Should It Apply to the “Written Description” Requirement? Also not surprisingly, there were multiple concurring (and dissenting) opinions discussing this separate and distinct “written description” requirement.  Judge Lourie (also not surprisingly writing the majority opinion) has now won the on-going debate that has raged between him and Judge Rader (who has strenuously argued there is no “written description” requirement separate and distinct from the “enablement” requirement) since the 1997 case of Regents of the University of California v. Eli Lilly & Co.

In probably the most significant case since In re Bilski, the en banc Federal Circuit in Ariad Pharmaceuticals v. Eli Lilly is about to ponder two questions:  (1) is there a separate and distinct “written description” requirement in the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112?; and (2) if there is, what does it mean?  My answer to the first question is an emphatic “yes”, unless you want to overrule the 1996 case of In re Alton which clearly says that the “written description” requirement is ”distinct from the enablement and best mode requirements.”  My answer to the second question is that the “written description” requirement fixes what the inventor(s) actually demonstrated and considered their invention to be at the time the patent application was filed (also known as the “what did the inventor(s) actually possess?” view).

On the same day – October 22, 2009 – that an Apple patent application relating to embedded advertisements in an operating system published, the Redmond Giant, Microsoft Corporation, had US Patent Application 20090265604 publish, which seeks to protect a method for displaying a graphical representation of the vitality of a social network. This patent application was filed on April 21, 2008, and is one of many related to social networking that Microsoft has pending presently.  A search of Patent Office recordings using FreePatentsOnline.com shows there are 19 issued US patents to Microsoft containing the term “social network” or “social networking” and 279 pending US patent applications filed by Microsoft containing one or the other of those terms.  This has become an all to familiar business plan for Microsoft, namely scrambling to catch up with whatever the current hot trend is.  Of particular note, Microsoft has in recent years been late to the party with respect to portable MP3 players, only introducing the Zune once the iPod had established industry dominance.  Microsoft has also been late to the search engine business, feverishly attempting to catch up to Google; they have come to the video gaming market only to be behind Sony PlayStation; and they have famously struggled with operating system failures, requiring a completely new OS to be unveiled just days ago in order to address the embarrassing failure of Vista.