A recent Post Grant Review (PGR) petition raises several interesting questions, including whether the crossing of two varieties of corn previously crossed and already owned by the patent owner results in a non-obvious claimed invention.
PTAB Adopts Nautilus Indefiniteness Standard - Intellectual Property mondaq.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mondaq.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Last month, in January 2021, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) published a memorandum (the “January 2021 Memorandum”) clarifying how it will analyze claims for indefiniteness in AIA post-grant proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”), namely patented claims in PGRs and CBMs and proposed substitute claims in IPRs. Prior to the January 2021 Memorandum, the PTAB applied two different approaches: the
Packard approach and the
Nautilus approach. According to the January 2021 Memorandum, the USPTO will now exclusively use the
Nautilus approach, as further explained below. This aligns the PTAB with the courts in civil actions.
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On January 6, 2021, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a memorandum clarifying the standard for indefiniteness in post-grant proceedings under the America Invents Act (AIA). Specifically, the USPTO decided on the
Nautilus standard, under which a claim is invalid as indefinite “if the claim, read in light of the specification delineating the patent, and the prosecution history, fails to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention.” The memorandum is available
Background
Title 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) provides that a patent shall have “one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.” The section, therefore, requires that patent claims be definite. A determination of whether a patent claim is indefinite can be made by the USPTO during examination, on
Europe s Top Five (Non-Patent) IP Developments of 2020 ipwatchdog.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ipwatchdog.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.