Ogg invents the wheel

Patent law is constantly changing, due to both legislative and judicial inputs.  This page is devoted (as time allows) to providing review and analysis of such changes.

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Strategy in view of recent events and important changes in patent law


OBVIOUSNESS
United States patent law requires that allowable claims must define a device or method that is novel, and non-obvious.  The Supreme court has recently unfettered the hands of Examiners at the USPTO to make sweeping accusations that an inventor's invention is "obvious".  The decision in KSR will have ramifications for many years, and make it more difficult for an inventor to obtain cost-effective and meaningful patent protection.  In certain circumstances, inventors may benefit from filing a PPA and aggressively marketing their invention in hope that a copier will appear before the subsequently-filed utility application is rejected in a Final rejection.  In such case, evidence of the copier may be submitted to the USPTO Examiner as a secondary consideration to refute a rejection under grounds of "obviousness".

FALSE MARKING
Patent protection requires providing Notice to competitors that a product or method is patented.  That is, damages are generally calculated from the time a copier first receives proper Notice that a product or method is protected by one or more patent.  Typically, Notice is made by including the applicable Patent No (or Nos.), on either the sales and/or marketing information or on the actual device.  However, the decision in [cite] has imposed an "up to $500.00" damages fee for each instance (or sale), of a device that includes even one incorrect patent number.  Imagine how much money is on the table for a product that has sold millons of units, and the product packaging includes one or more expired patent numbers, or the number of even one patent that does not actually "read on" the item being marketed.  A cottage industry has immediately sprung up, in which attorneys are suing companies for "False Marking".  Be careful, and have your patent counsel review your marketing materials.


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