Howard Skaist

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Patent Prosecution Across the AIA Divide: Warning to Patent Practitioners – Special Care is Needed to Avoid Legal Malpractice

Therefore, returning to my hypothetical inquiry above, assume a continuation is filed on or after March 13, 2013, but is accomplished in such a manner so that its does not qualify to be treated as a patent application under current law. This means, as a consequence, that if, for example, the parent application when originally filed relied upon the one year grace period or if someone else files a patent application describing the subject matter of the invention before the filing of the parent application (but otherwise was not the “first to invent”), the claims of the continuation will be rendered unpatentable. Furthermore, since it would have been possible to file the continuation in a manner so that current law continued to apply even after March 13, 2013, one might imagine that a patent prosecutor in this situation may be subject to liability and/or perhaps a bar complaint. If I now have your attention, continue reading, because this situation can take place much more easily than I certainly would have imagined.

Traps for the Unwary Regarding Patent Claim Drafting and Definition of Prior Art Under Leahy Smith

For example, the new provision retains the existing notion of “public use” and “on sale” under current law; however, a key difference is that the one year grace period of current law will not be available under new 102 (Another key difference is that activities outside the United States may create a so-called public use or on sale bar under new 102). The new grace period under the America Invents Act is personal to the inventor and relates to “disclosure,” which many believe could be interpreted not to cover “public use” or “sale” as those terms are presently understood. Therefore, there is a possibility that your client’s invention may already be unpatentable in the United States by the time he or she contacts you (such as if a “public use” or “offer for sale” even took place the day before he or she consults you).