Conflicts & Liability in Patent Practice.

The Toledo Patent Law Association (TPLA) hosted a CLE event on Friday, December 7th, titled Conflicts of Interest in Patent Prosecution and Litigation.  The CLE was presented by Professor David Hricik of the Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia.  Professor Hricik is also the present Chair of the Professionalism & Ethics Committee of the AIPLA.

The CLE event was well attended and was positively received by the attendees.  Among the topics reviewed were patent litigation conflicts, opinion conflicts, prosecution conflicts, and strategies for potentially avoiding the same (beyond the interesting solution of merely having one client and one case).  Some interesting scenarios involving “pulling punches” and ”claim shaving” were discussed.   Recent case law related to the aforementioned conflict situations was also reviewed.

Among the various hypothetical scenarios put forth by Professor Hricik, one we thought particularly intriguing from a patent prosecution standpoint follows:

PTO rejects claim for Client A over a reference owned by Client B; Client A sues because you were “objective ” when you should have attacked harder . . . .

One can see where a conflict might arise in such as situation beyond mere allegations of “pulling punches”.  For example, Client B that owns the cited reference may equally be upset over any “disparaging” remarks or comments made to overcome the reference for Client A.  Some firms have apparently decided to run conflict checks on references cited in Office Actions from the USPTO, due to this very issue.  Do the honorable readers of the AT! have any thoughts? 

A copy of CLE presentation has graciously been provided for online review by Professor Hricik, and may be found here.

JW Note:  The TPLA has promised more interesting CLE events to come, so stay tuned if you are a practitioner located in the Midwest (or if you have the urge to travel to beautiful Toledo, Ohio for CLE)!

In re Paul Lew.

Use of the phrase “the invention” in combination with a specific element is “strong evidence” that the inventor intended his invention to be limited to embodiments containing the element.  

(Fed. Cir. 2007, 07-1196, nonprecedential)

Paul Lew and Jason Schiers (collectively “Lew”) appealed a decision of the BPAI sustaining a final rejection of claim 19 of patent application No. 10/658,143 (the ‘143 application”).  The CAFC affirmed.

The technology at issue was a “wheel hub with clutch,” primarily intended for bicycles, which allows the wheel connected to the hub to “free wheel” when no torque is applied (e.g., the bicycler is not pedaling), but which nearly instantly engages when torque is applied (e.g., the bicycler is pedaling).  According to Lew’s original specification, this torque transfer is facilitated “through a multitude of ball bearings.” 

During prosecution, Lew submitted Claim 19 and a substitute specification to overcome a statutory double patenting rejection.  The substitute specification was substantially the same as the original specification, except that the term “ball bearings” was replaced with “curved members,” and the term ”pockets” were replaced with “slots.” Notably, the term “curved members” was not previously used anywhere in the application.  The Examiner concluded that the amendments introduced new matter into the application that was not supported by the initial disclosure.  Lew argued that, because a “ball bearing” is inherently a curved object, Lew was entitled to claim the entire broader category of “curved objects.”  Thus, the issue before the CAFC was “whether Lew’s disclosure of only “ball bearings” is sufficient, in light of the initial disclosure, for a person of ordinary skill in the art to have determined that Lew was in possession, as of the initial filing date, of using any “curved member” in place of the ball bearings?”

Under 35 U.S.C. § 132 (no new matter) and 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph (written description requirement), a new claim or other amendment to a specification after the original filing date must find support in the original specification.  The CAFC reiterated the long-held rule that an application is required to “convey with reasonable clarity to those skilled in the art that, as of the filing date sought, he or she was in possession of the invention.” Although the claimed subject matter need not be described “in haec verba”, the issue rests on whether a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the applicant possessed what is claimed in the later filed application as of the filing date of the earlier filed application.

The CAFC noted that there was no language in the original written description that would suggest that using “ball bearings” was only one specific embodiment of Lew’s invention.  In fact, each time the phrase “the invention” was described, including in the summary of the invention and the abstract, the invention was stated to include “ball bearings.”   The CAFC has consistently viewed such language as “strong evidence” that the inventor intended his invention to be limited to embodiments containing such an element.

Accordingly, the CAFC held that substantial evidence supported the Board’s determination that Lew’s amendments to replace the term “ball bearing” with the broader term “curved member” were not supported by the initial disclosure.

AFFIRMED.

They Invented What? (No. 76)

U.S. Pat. No. 5,707,114:  Vehicle wheel.

JW Note:  The spoked wheel . . . application filed in 1995.  Many thanks again to Michael Barclay for the submissions.

 

What is claimed is:

1. A spoked wheel comprising:

an annular rim having an inner diameter;

a central hub;

a plurality of spokes running between the rim and hub, with each spoke having width to thickness ratio of at least 2:1, wherein said spokes have spoke portions including inside spoke portions in fixed relationship to the hub and outside spoke portions in fixed relationship to the rim, and wherein said spokes extend radially outwardly between the hub and rim;

an encircling member affixed to at least one of the inside and outside spoke portions and included with at least one of the annular rim and the central hub, said encircling member defining a hollow annulus;

a fastener for affixing said spokes to said encircling member including two leg members extending in substantially the same direction, wherein said leg members are attached via an intermediate portion substantially traversing said direction and said fastener extending from at least one of said inside spoke portion and said outside spoke portion of at least one of said plurality of spokes and into said hollow annulus, wherein said fastener is attached to said at least one of said plurality of spokes and said leg members are directed toward said encircling member; and

means for adjusting the tension of said spokes connected with said spokes.