November 10, 2020
In assessing obviousness rejections, a threshold issue is whether the cited reference(s) qualify as prior art. A reference qualifies as prior art for an obviousness determination
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November 6, 2020
On September 30, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) issued a decision in Ex parte Drozdenko (Appeal No. 2020-001293) reversing an Examiner’s obviousness rejection
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November 2, 2020
An examiner sometimes raises an obviousness rejection under the “design choice” doctrine, alleging a claimed feature, such as a certain dimension, shape, or arrangement, is merely
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October 30, 2020
U.S. patent examiners sometimes rely on the theory of inherency to fill gaps in the prior art. This usually occurs when patent claims recite structural limitations
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October 27, 2020
Ex parte Chuang is a 2008 decision of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) that is listed among the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s
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October 21, 2020
A threshold issue in the context of double patenting is whether the applications/patents in question have (i) at least one common applicant, and/or are (ii) commonly
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October 15, 2020
On September 29, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) issued a decision in Ex parte Brinhaus (Appeal No. 2019-006794) and reversed an Examiner’s obviousness
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October 12, 2020
It is well-settled that if a proposed modification or combination of prior art would change the principle of operation of the prior art invention being modified,
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October 9, 2020
U.S. patent claims usually contain the term “comprising.” This term indicates that an item in the claim must include certain specified components, but that the item
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October 5, 2020
Ex parte Porro is a 2008 decision of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) that is listed among the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s
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