Category: Patents

Questions & Answers About Patents

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Patents Q&A

When Should a Provisional Patent Application Be Considered?

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A provisional patent application — sometimes called a “provisional application”, “provisional” or “PPA” for short — is a type of patent application that can be filed in the United States. They were intended to provide lower-cost first patent filings for new inventions. A provisional acts kind of like a placeholder for up to one year. It is never substantively examined for patentability. And a provisional can never directly be granted as an enforceable patent. But you can file a further non-provisional application that claims “priority” back to the provisional application filing date. A provisional filing lets you put a stake in the ground to preserve patent rights, so-to-speak.

The question at hand is really what factors weigh in favor or against filing a provisional. In short, what are the pros and cons of filing a provisional?

provisional application for patent cover sheet form PTO/SB/16
USPTO Provisional Application Cover Sheet Form (PTO/SB/16)

Advantages and Benefits

Some of the most common advantages and benefits of a provisional patent application are the following:

  • Extends patent expiration date (patent term benefit)
  • Allows products to be marked “patent pending”
  • Establishes filing date (priority) to cut-off potential later-arising “prior art”
    • Allows commercial potential of invention to be explored for up to a year without losing patent rights
    • Helps win race to the patent office if others are working on similar inventions
  • No need to comply with formalities for drawings, etc.
    • Might be filed quickly in the face of an impending loss of patent rights associated with a public disclosure/use or sales activity
  • Kept confidential (at least until cited in a later-published application or granted patent, such as through a priority claim)
  • Evidence of inventorship as of filing date
  • Lower initial official filing fees than a non-provisional application
  • Can later claim priority to multiple provisional applications

One of the biggest benefits of a U.S. provisional application is that the time period between the provisional filing date and the filing date of a non-provisional application claiming priority back to the provisional is not counted against patent term. This means that a provisional can push out the patent expiration date by up to a year (but this happens partly by delaying the grant of any patent by roughly the same amount of time). It can effectively extend the patent term to 21 years from filing. For some inventions, the most valuable period of patent protection may be later in the term, making such an extension valuable.

A pending provisional application also allows products to be marked as “patent pending.” That serves as a warning to potential copyists. It may also provide marketing and business development benefits.

Filing a provisional application establishes an official “filing date” for the disclosed invention. This is significant because patent rights generally go to the first inventor to file a patent application. So provisionals help win the race to the patent office. If there is some public disclosure that occurs after the provisional filing date it will not count as “prior art” against a later claim with “priority” to the provisional filing date. Prior art can potentially bar patentability. It can stem from your own disclosures and activities or someone else’s. Either way, a provisional can potentially exclude later-arising disclosures from being used as prior art against you. It is this aspect that allows you to disclose the invention to potential customers, etc. during the year after the provisional filing without loss of rights.

Another advantage is that provisionals do not require formal drawings, claims, etc. Here we can loosely distinguish between “informal” and “formal”/”full” provisionals. A “formal” or “full” provisional is one that could be filed as a non-provisional because it is written up in full detail to comply with all the requirements of a regular non-provisional utility patent application. An “informal” provisional is one that would not be sufficient or compliant as a non-provisional utility patent application.

A formal/full provisional generally offers no savings on preparation costs and effort compared to a non-provisional application. But the official filing fee is less and an eventual patent expiration date can be extended. The main advantage is that you reduce the risks of having inadequate disclosure of the invention. Not all provisional applications are equal. A provisional is really only as good as the disclosure it contains. If a provisional application omit details that are essential to patentability of an invention the provisional may be ineffective or even worthless. Putting in the effort to prepare a full disclosure of the invention reduces such risk.

An informal provisional departs from the format of non-provisional applications and granted patents somehow. It might have drawings with shading or lacking reference characters (labels), pages pulled from presentation slides with text in different orientations, figures (graphical illustrations, diagrammatic views, flowcharts, and/or diagrams) inserted into the middle of pages of descriptive text, etc. They sometimes repurpose existing documentation. Such informality may allow for quick filing. For example, if disclosure of the invention at a trade show or customer meeting is immanent, an informal provisional can be filed on an urgent basis to preserve patent rights.

Any type of provisional allows exploration of the commercial possibilities of the disclosed invention before deciding if a non-provisional application is worthwhile. The USPTO keeps provisional applications secret initially. If you abandon the provisional without claiming priority to it or disclosing it in some other way, its contents will never be made public by the USPTO. That means you might be able to still pursue patent protection later (despite loss of priority) if there was no intervening public disclosure or commercialization of the invention by you or anyone else. But if you claim priority to a provisional in a non-provisional application the contents are made public (upon publication or grant).

When seeking to generate interest in an invention or make sales, do keep in mind the scope of protection a provisional will and will not offer. A provisional is generally effective if it includes as much or more disclosure as what is publicly disclosed, publicly used, sold, or offered for sale (or what has already been publicly disclosed, publicly used, sold, or offered for sale within the prior year). The limits of protection are discussed in the disadvantages and risks section below.

Provisionals are also occasionally useful in providing evidence of inventorship. For instance, a provisional might provide some evidence of independent invention as of the provisional filing date (as part of self-authenticating official U.S. government records), although this is not always sufficient by itself.

Additionally, if research and development is ongoing, it is possible to file multiple provisional applications. A later non-provisional application can claim priority to any or all of those provisionals — assuming they are all filed within a year and have at least one common inventor. And one (or more) of those provisionals could be abandoned and kept confidential if unnecessary to later patenting strategies. In other words, with up to a year of hindsight, you could pick and chose some but not all of the provisionals for priority claims. And new matter can still be added to a later non-provisional application too. That new matter just won’t receive priority to an earlier provisional filing date.

Disadvantages and Risks

Some of disadvantages and risks associated with filing a provisional patent application are the following:

  • Adds to total cost of obtaining a patent
  • Delays the (potential) grant of a patent
  • Risk of inadequate disclosure in an “informal” provisional
    • If foreign patent protection is eventually sought, the disclosure requirements may differ from U.S. law
  • Patentability might already be barred before filing (that is, the provisional is already too late)
  • Not available for designs
  • Foreign law may necessitate first filing in a foreign country or obtaining a foreign filing license before filing the provisional for inventions made wholly or partly outside the United States

Filing a provisional adds to the total cost of obtaining a patent. If you simply file a non-provisional application from the start you avoid the provisional filing fees entirely, plus any attorney fees associated with the provisional.

A provisional also delays the grant of a patent (assuming the invention is patentable). Though, in exchange, the expiration date of the patent is pushed out the same amount of time. Sometimes that trade-off is acceptable. But if the invention is likely to be copied, delays in obtaining a patent might delay enforcement action against infringers.

The main risk of a provisional filing stems from it containing an inadequate disclosure. From one perspective, filing a patent application (provisional or non-provisional) is better than not filing when it comes to helping protect an invention. But not all provisional applications are equal. put another way, the question is not merely about filing or not filing a provisional but about filing an adequate and sufficient provisional or not. A poorly-prepared provisional application may inadequately or unfavorably disclose the invention. In that sense, it may create a false sense of security. Never forget that a provisional is only as good as the disclosure it contains. Whether a given provisional is good enough comes down to what public disclosure and commercialization takes place, the scope of the prior art, and your overall patenting strategy and expectations.

If you file a provisional application to avoid a patentability analysis or even just to avoid hard thought about what is really the invention and how to claim it, you can’t know if the provisional application contains sufficient disclosure of a patentable invention. This might be risky if you rely on an “informal” provisional that cuts corners compared to a “full” or “formal” provisional (see definitions above). That is a particular concern if you sell or publicly use a product but important technical details about that product were omitted from the provisional.

Legally, the provisional application disclosure (written description) must enable one of ordinary skill in the art to practice the entire invention claimed in a later non-provisional application. There have been many cases where omission of some detail in a provisional application (that turns out to be important to patentability of a later-filed claim) resulted in a loss of priority to the provisional filing date for one or more claims. So you have to understand what will be later claimed in order to know if a provisional’s disclosure is sufficient. Complex or highly abstract technologies raise this issue. For example, an invention related to signal processing is probably not directly observable, meaning a provisional write-up must sufficiently capture the unobservable.

An important legal concern is that you cannot preempt a future invention before it has arrived. So you need a disclosure in the provisional that corroborates conception of the invention you will later claim. If you later try to claim an entire “genus”, this often turns into a question of whether the provisional disclosure was limited to a particular “species” (i.e., specific embodiment) within that genus or made clear that an entire genus was invented and enabled — usually by disclosing either a representative number of species in that genus or structural features common to the genus sufficient for member species to be recognized. Another potential issue involves claiming ranges of particular values. If you later claim a narrow numerical range, perhaps to avoid prior art falling in a different range, previously disclosing only a broader range might not be sufficient. These are fact-intensive inquiries.

Legal requirements in other countries vary. For instance, other countries may have stricter requirements about claims using nearly the identical language as the preceding description of the invention. And other countries may not permit reliance on disclosures contained only in drawings. They may instead look for textual descriptions of what is in a drawing. If foreign patent protection is (or might be) contemplated, differences in disclosure requirements should also be considered when preparing the provisional.

A provisional application also won’t save you when patentability is already barred. For instance, if the invention was already sold or publicly disclosed by the inventor more than a year before, then patentability is already barred in the United States. Any pre-filing public disclosure by the inventor may bar patenting in some other countries too. And an invention that lacks utility, is anticipated, or is obvious won’t be patentable either, regardless of whether a provisional was filed.

Additionally, provisional applications cannot be used in connection with designs. If your invention pertains to an ornamental design of a useful article, a regular (non-provisional) design patent application is the only option.

Lastly, some countries have laws that require patent applications to be filed in that country first if the invention was made or conceived in that country, or that a license be obtained to file abroad first. If any inventor resides in a foreign country or performed inventive activity while temporarily outside the United States, any applicable foreign laws should be considered. Those laws may impose penalties for making a provisional filing in the United States rather than in the foreign country. Foreign priority cannot be claimed in a U.S. provisional application.

Concluding Thoughts

Provisional patent applications are routinely used by applicants ranging from individual inventors to large corporations. There are many excellent reasons to file a provisional, including extending the expiration date of any resultant patent. It is always worthwhile to consider filing a provisional application. But a hastily- or poorly-prepared provisional may be insufficient to preserve a priority claim. Cutting corners to file a provisional cheaply or quickly imposes some limits on the scope of protection obtained. Always remember that a provisional is only as good as the disclosure it contains — that point is worth repeating.

A common mistake in applications self-prepared by inventors is to focus on the prior art or problem to be solved but omit the crucial disclosure of the substance and structure of the new invention — or do so only with general, vague, and conclusory statements that fail to establish anything more than a hope that an invention will be discovered later. A provisional also won’t be effective if key enabling aspects of the invention are purposefully withheld from the application. For instance, a disclosed algorithm cannot obscure key steps of the purported invention within a “black box”. Another common mistake is to characterize the invention in a way that limits the ability to claim the invention more broadly (or narrowly) later on.

Whether a provisional patent application is worthwhile will ultimately depend on circumstances such as the subject matter of the invention(s), the state of the art, any looming bars to patentability, the business goals and objectives of the applicant, the realistic commercial value of the invention, and the applicant’s worldwide patent strategy.

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Austen Zuege is an attorney at law and registered U.S. patent attorney in Minneapolis whose practice encompasses patents, trademarks, copyrights, domain name cybersquatting, IP agreements and licensing, freedom-to-operate studies, client counseling, and IP litigation. If you have patent, trademark, or other IP issues, he can help.

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When is an Opinion of Counsel Worthwhile?

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Obtaining an opinion of counsel is a way to help defend yourself in a later patent infringement dispute. In the most general sense, opinions help demonstrate that you acted in good faith at the time. In court, an opinion can be used for an advice of counsel defense against charges of active inducement of infringement or willful infringement, and to rebut demands to pay the other side’s attorney fees because the case is “exceptional”. A finding that infringement was willful can lead to enhanced damages (up to 3x). And the patentee’s attorneys fees can be considerable. So an opinion can help limit exposure.

Opinions are not required. By statute, failure to obtain an opinion of counsel, or to rely on one at trial, cannot be used against the accused infringer to prove willfulness or inducement. It is up to an accused infringer to decide if the burden of obtaining an opinion is worthwhile or not. So the real question become: what circumstances make an opinion worthwhile? Below is a summary of some factors to consider when deciding if you should get an opinion. There are grouped into three categories, though the categories do overlap.

In the end, many of these factors are about whether your conduct might be seen (after-the-fact) as having been reckless and therefore unreasonably risky, with an opinion representing the best way to show that your intent was reasonable at the time. More generally, obtaining an opinion can be a key component of overall efforts to develop and implement strategically beneficial legal positions going forward.

Elevated Exposure Risk Factors

Certain circumstances present elevated exposure risks when it comes to patent infringement. In other words, some circumstances make a patent lawsuit more likely or more costly if you lose. These factors include:

  • You received a cease & desist or licensing letter from the patentee
  • The potential amount of (enhanced) damages is high, such as from high-volume sales
  • The potential amount of attorney’s fee award is high, such as if both sides are inclined to fight to the end rather than settle
  • There is a particularly high chance of a lawsuit; for instance:
    • the patent owner is a direct competitor in a highly competitive industry
    • the patent owner is litigious or has been suing many others in your industry for infringement
    • you have a history of disputes with the patent owner, even if not necessarily about patents
    • the patent owner sued you for infringement in another jurisdiction
    • the patent owner is a former vendor you broke ties with to make a similar product yourself
    • you hired away an inventor-employee from the patent owner to work on a competing product
    • you recently won over a customer, contract, or bid from the patentee
  • You believe there is a high probability the patentee will sue and seek a preliminary injunction

Factors Relating to Particular Defenses

Various patent infringement defenses depend on the accused infringer’s state of mind. But many legal questions surrounding patent infringement are complicated. A written opinion by competent legal counsel documents a defense so that it is clear later on that the investigation and legal analysis were sufficient to reasonably rely on. In other words, it makes clear that your defense was not conclusory, superficial, based on inaccurate information, biased, exaggerated, conjured up after-the-fact, or unreasonable. These factors include:

  • You want to completely avoid liability for inducement of infringement based on non-infringement (lack of scienter); this often applies when another entity such as a customer or end-user performs steps of a method claim using your product
  • You want to rely on an invalidity or unenforceability defense; it is almost never reasonable to rely on the invalidity or unenforceability of an asserted patent without an opinion of counsel because those defenses usually involve complex legal and factual issues, and because patents are presumed valid and overcoming that presumption carries a high burden of proof in court
  • Your non-infringement position relies on a particular claim interpretation (rather than the unambiguous and uncontroversial absence of a claim element under its plain and ordinary meaning); for instance:
    • non-infringement rests on the interpretation of a “means-plus-function” claim limitation
    • non-infringement relies upon a claim interpretation citing dictionaries, technical treatises, or other extrinsic evidence
    • you want to rely on something in the prosecution history to inform claim interpretation, such as a prosecution disclaimer or disavowal of claim scope
    • you believe the patent owner disclaimed or disavowed something in the patent or acted as his or her “own lexicographer” to define a claim term in a particular way
    • differences between products within the claimed technology area are extremely complex, nuanced, or counter-intuitive in general, making proper interpretation prone to error
    • the claims would be difficult for an ordinary juror to understand on their face
  • Your non-infringement position relies on complex indirect (contributory) infringement, extraterritoriality, or permissible repair issues; for instance, your position implicates the repair/reconstruction doctrine for non-staple-of-commerce goods, implicates manufacturing processes performed abroad on goods later imported, or implicates split or divided infringement issues for method/process claims
  • The doctrine of equivalents is a concern; that is, you want to rule out a plausible infringement theory under the doctrine of equivalents where there is no prosecution history estoppel, or you want to confirm that prosecution history estoppel applies to a crucial claim element

Business and Reputational Factors

Other relevant factors are less about the legal basis for defenses but instead have to do with business relationships, company policies, practicalities of technology, and marketplace considerations. These factors include:

  • An opinion can evaluate the effectiveness of a “design-around” that changed your planned product configuration to avoid infringement; in other words, the opinion is the culmination of more wide-ranging efforts to avoid infringement
  • You want to document your position so that you can better stick to it despite changes in company personnel, corporate mergers, etc.; this also includes documenting your position to avoid unwittingly undoing efforts to “design-around” a patent with subsequent product changes (possibly years later when the reasons for the design-around are nearly forgotten)
  • An opinion can help convey technical and legal issues to corporate leaders and decision-makers who lack a deep understanding of the technology or patent law
  • Having obtained an opinion of counsel can help provide comfort and a confidence boost to executives and employees who would likely be called to testify in an infringement lawsuit
  • You signed a contract that requires you to obtain an opinion of counsel
  • You offer an indemnity to a customer, distributor, etc. and want to limit exposure for those others’ activities (which may not be entirely within your control)
  • You want to tell customers, distributors, business partners, or investors that you obtained an opinion, in order to reassure them (while withholding the substantive opinion to preserve privilege)
  • Establishing a regular policy of obtaining opinions when aware of infringement risks as concrete evidence of a general good faith posture regarding competitor and other 3rd party patents; it may even be what you would expect others to do if your own patent was at issue
  • Obtaining an opinion can allow for risk mitigation without limiting action to the most conservative legal position; that is, an opinion can help legal counsel or a legal department devise an acceptable path forward and avoid a reputation for saying “no” to too many business proposals
  • You want to limit liability of individual corporate executives or directors in their personal capacity, including for inducing infringement by the corporation or in piercing the corporate veil scenarios

Parting Remarks About Opinions

Opinions of counsel may not be legally required but obtaining them is often still worthwhile. They can provide great evidence to present to a judge or jury in defense against infringement allegations. That is especially the case when relying on an invalidity argument or a particular claim interpretation. Having an opinion provides a fall-back position so that if you are found to infringe you (hopefully) don’t have to also pay punitive damages or the patentee’s attorney’s fees. A non-infringement opinion can also potentially avoid any and all liability for inducement of infringement (if applicable). But any opinion really needs to be in writing and be prepared by competent outside counsel in order to have the best chance of being effective in those respects. Seriously consider obtaining an opinion whenever a potentially problematic patent comes to your attention.

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Austen Zuege is an attorney at law and registered U.S. patent attorney in Minneapolis whose practice encompasses patents, trademarks, copyrights, domain name cybersquatting, IP agreements and licensing, freedom-to-operate studies, client counseling, and IP litigation. If you have patent, trademark, or other IP issues, he can help.

Contact Austen
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Patents Q&A

When Should a Patentability Search Be Performed?

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A full assessment of patentability requires identifying the closest prior art and then performing a legal analysis of the invention you want to patent in light of that prior art. Doing this meaningfully requires a patentability search. You need to conduct a patentability search at the right time to get the most value from it. An example timeline for a patentability search is shown below. This example timeline is meant to illustrate best practices for timing a patentability search in relation to filing a new patent application.

graphic of timeline for patentability search

You start with an initial idea or business case. That is the point at which there is a commitment to spend time and resources to try to come up with an invention. But it may be no more than a wish or plan. Sometime after that research & development (R&D) and product development begins. And at some point one or more inventions are conceived. That might occur at the same time as the initial idea or closely following it. Or there might be considerable R&D and development work needed before it appears that an actual invention has been conceived.

The invention is ready for patenting when it is possible to document how to make and use it. This might happen at the same time as conception. Or an invention might start as a loose collection of disjointed thoughts in the inventor’s mind and require extensive experimental testing before before the details can be meaningfully documented. Building a working prototype is sufficient but not required. Sometimes you might just want to test different embodiments to determine which is most viable. What matters most is that an invention must be sufficiently developed beyond a mere wish or plan to invent before a patent application can be prepared. But the applicant also has to subjectively feel ready to move forward with patenting a particular invention too.

Ideally, a patent application should be filed before any public disclosure, public use, or commercialization of the invention. This is required in many countries. Though there is a one-year grace period for patent filings in the United States after a public disclosure or sale by the inventor.

The patentability search should ideally be conducted before patent application drafting begins. This allows the results of the patentability search to be fully taken into account while preparing the application. It is often possible to write a better patent application when the closest prior art is known. Differences and improvements over the prior art can be described more thoroughly that way. Also, if the patentability search is unfavorable then you can avoid the expense of preparing and filing a patent application. That is one of the best reasons to perform a search.

It is possible to perform a patentability search while a patent application is being prepared. But once application drafting has begun it gets progressively harder to incorporate search results. And once a non-provisional application is filed the benefits of a patentability search drop close to zero. Though searches are still beneficial when done between the filing of a provisional patent application and the preparation of a non-provisional application.

But a particular invention must already be conceived before the patentability search is performed. If you don’t have any idea what the invention actually is, you cannot perform a meaningful patentability search. Otherwise you wouldn’t know what to search for. These searches are directly tied to the invention you want to patent after all. If you haven’t actually conceived an invention yet and just want to evaluate business opportunities (rather than patentability) then a landscape search is more appropriate.

In some circumstances, you may wish to delay a patentability search. That can help avoid wasted search effort if other inventions might take precedence in business plans. But, on the other hand, a patentability search might help you determine if an invention is ready and worthy of patenting. Applicants have wide latitude to define their inventions however they want. Sometimes you start with a broad view of an invention but a patentability search reveals that some aspects were actually already known. You might then have to do further development in order for the most promising “new” aspects to be ready for patenting. Or you might find that the patentable aspects are simply not commercially valuable enough to pursue.

You might also combine a patentability search with a freedom-to-operate (FTO) search. FTO searches assess risks of infringement for a planned product or service. The timing has to be right for both types of searches for a combined study to make sense. The parameters and legal considerations for patentability and FTO studies also differ significantly. So a combined search always involves more effort than one search individually. But sometimes there is enough overlap in the searching effort for a combined search to make sense.

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Austen Zuege is an attorney at law and registered U.S. patent attorney in Minneapolis whose practice encompasses patents, trademarks, copyrights, domain name cybersquatting, IP agreements and licensing, freedom-to-operate studies, client counseling, and IP litigation. If you have patent, trademark, or other IP issues, he can help.

Contact Austen
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Patents Q&A

What Are the Requirements for Patentability?

U.S. patent cover

3 Basic Requirements

In order to get a patent for an invention it must be patentable. There are three basic requirements for patentability:

Utility
Novelty
Non-Obviousness

An applicant gets to define an invention in “claims” of a patent application. Patentability is always analyzed by looking at those claims. If a claims fails any requirements for patentability, then the applicant is not entitled to a patent on it. Though it is still possible to consider the patentability of an invention in an informal sense even before any claims are written. However, judgments about patentability (or validity) can be challenging and subject to dispute.

There are other patentability requirements, such as enablement and definiteness. But these other requirements go more to the form and content of a patent application. You might even say those other requirements are about an application being presented in a patentable form rather than being about the patentability of an underlying invention in the abstract. Only the three basic requirements are discussed below.

Utility

Utility is about the nature of the invention itself. If you write a novel it can never be patented. That is because it is not “useful”. So it fails the utility requirement. But that is an easy example. Nobody thinks of the contents of a book as an invention. So what “useful” inventions are patent-eligible? U.S. patent law states, “Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor . . . .” Despite that broad definition, laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patent-eligible. A claimed invention that is nothing more than one of those things is “preemptive” and fails the utility requirement.

Most man-made inventions have utility. Questions about patent eligibility (utility) tend to arise most for software, methods of medical diagnosis and treatment, biotechnology/life sciences, and business methods. In those areas, the way a patent application and its claims are drafted tends to get a lot of scrutiny.

For design patents, ornamentality is required instead of utility. Ornamentation can be (a) the shape of an article itself, (b) something applied to or embedding in an article, such as surface ornamentation, or (c) a combination of the first two possibilities. Also, the ornamentation must be applied to an “article of manufacture”. A picture standing alone is not eligible for design patent protection. But aside from ornamentality replacing the utility requirement, both of the other patentability requirements (novelty and non-obviousness) still apply to designs.

Novelty

Novelty means that an invention cannot be identical to something already known. For instance, if a claimed invention was already disclosed in someone else’s earlier patent then it lacks novelty. In this respect, assessing novelty involves a comparison that first requires an understanding of what came before. Lack of novelty is commonly referred to as “anticipation”.

However, only certain documents and information can be considered for patentability. Whether or not something qualifies as “prior art” against a given patent claim must first be established. Usually the question is whether a given patent or publication is old enough to be considered prior art. U.S. patent laws set forth somewhat complicated definitions of prior art and novelty. But, in general, earlier patents, printed publications, public uses, and sales can all potentially qualify as prior art. Even inventors’ own past actions and writings can count as prior art against them.

Sometimes novelty is described as “absolute novelty” because inventors are charged with constructive knowledge of all prior art. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether the inventor actually knew about the relevant prior art or not. The novelty requirement bars more than inventions copied from elsewhere. Even obscure disclosures about inventions that are not commercial available—and may never have been—may bar patentability.

Novelty also takes into account inherent teachings. It goes beyond explicit, literal prior art disclosures to further encompass what is unstated but necessarily implied. So, for example, if the prior art structure is the same as what is claimed, then previously unappreciated properties and benefits of that structure are likely inherent even if unstated in an earlier patent.

Novelty and anticipation always refer to what was (explicitly or inherently) disclosed in a single prior art reference. This distinguishes novelty from obviousness, which is discussed below.

Non-Obviousness (or Inventive Step)

Non-obviousness means an invention must represent a significant advance over what was already known in order to be patentable. U.S. patent laws say that even if the claimed invention has novelty, it will not be patentable “if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious . . . to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains.” Many other countries use the term “inventive step” to refer to the concept of non-obviousness.

Obviousness is formally analyzed by first determining the scope and content of the prior art, the differences between the prior art and the claim at issue, and the level of ordinary skill in the relevant art. Those facts must be taken into account when drawing a legal conclusion about obviousness or non-obviousness. So-called secondary considerations for non-obviousness can also be considered. But such secondary evidence is often not available.

obviousness graphic
Conceptual Illustration of Anticipation/Obviousness/Non-Obviousness

It is possible to conceptualize obviousness as a fuzzy zone around the closest prior art. In that zone the invention is too trivial to be patentable. An invention must go far enough beyond the prior art to be worthy of a patent. Though exactly how far is hard to establish with a bright line. The main way to reach non-obviousness is to claim something that solves a technical problem in the prior art. You do need an invention and cannot merely claim the absence of the prior art or the absence of a problem. After all, patentability is about encouraging inventions that positively contribute to human knowledge. That is how this ties in to the reason patents exist.

In practical terms, patent application claims are often rejected by an examiner for obviousness based on a combination of multiple prior art patents. In those situations, no single earlier patent discloses all the features or elements of a given patent claim. But the examiner can assert that someone would have been motivated to combine or modify the different teachings of multiple earlier patents to arrive at the claimed invention (with a reasonable chance of success). These are often difficult judgments to make. And there can be a temptation to slide into hindsight bias. These are some of the reasons why obviousness is sometimes called the ultimate condition for patentability.

Have an invention you would like to patent? Have a brand you would like to register as a trademark? Concerned about infringing someone else’s intellectual property? Is someone else infringing your IP? Need representation in an IP dispute? Austen is a patent attorney / trademark attorney who can help. These and other IP issues are his area of expertise. Contact Austen today to discuss.

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Patents Q&A

Why Are There Patents?

Patent laws have existed for a very long time in some from or another. The Venetian Patent Statute of 1474 is considered the first modern patent law. U.S. patent laws evolved from the Statute of Monopolies in England, from 1624, which had limited the English Crown’s ability to grant “odious” monopolies over entire industries indefinitely.  Instead, parliament imposed a key provision allowing only “new manufactures” to be patented and only for 14 years. Similarly, the U.S. Constitution authorizes congress to enact patent laws, subject to certain limits, and patents have been available in the United States since 1790.

–“To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

U.S. Constitution, Article 1, § 8, clause 8
patent disclosure/exclusivity "quid pro quo" graphic
Conceptual illustration of the quid pro quo behind modern patent laws

What modern patent laws have in common is the concept of a quid pro quo. In exchange for disclosing how to make and use an invention, a government will grant the inventor exclusive rights in that invention (and only that invention) for a limited time. The idea is that this promotes progress in engineering and science—the “useful arts”. Patents incentivize inventors to disclose inventions rather than keep them secret. And when the limited term of a patent expires, the public is then able to freely use the invention. The primary purpose is therefore not reward of the individual but the advancement of the useful arts for the benefit of general society. These are the policies behind modern patent laws.

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Austen Zuege is an attorney at law and registered U.S. patent attorney in Minneapolis whose practice encompasses patents, trademarks, copyrights, domain name cybersquatting, IP agreements and licensing, freedom-to-operate studies, client counseling, and IP litigation. If you have patent, trademark, or other IP issues, he can help.

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Patents Q&A Trademarks

What is an Office Action?

“Office actions” are official communications about patent or trademark applications. In general, an office action specifies a reason (or perhaps multiple reasons) why an examiner believes that a patent or trademark registration cannot be issued. Applicants can generally file a response to an office action within a specified period of time. Specific types of office actions are discussed below. Skip to: patent or trademark.

Patent Office Actions

For patent applications, an office action makes a rejection or objection, or both, for some aspect of the application. Office actions are part of patent “examination” or “prosecution”. An office action is prepared by a patent examiner assigned to examine the given application to assess patentability. So, in other words, the office action indicates why the examiner believes a patent cannot be granted.

Most commonly, office actions will reject some or all claims of the application for (allegedly) being unpatentable in light of cited “prior art”, which might be an existing patent for a similar invention, for example. Though an office action might also indicate that some claims are patentable (allowable).

Example patent office action summary (form PTOL-326)
Sample Patent Office Action Summary Page

The first page of an office action is a cover sheet with important mailing/sending date information. The next page is a summary. The remainder explains the substantive basis for the rejection or objection. Multiple office actions can be issued for a given patent application. Though eventually an office action will be made “final”, meaning the examiner considers prosecution closed.

There are other types of official communications that are not “on the merits”, like restriction and election requirements. Patent practitioners typically use different terms to refer to those other communications. That distinguishes them from regular office actions dealing with patentability.

Office actions are common. The overwhelming majority (almost 90%) of all new patent applications receive some sort of rejection or objection in an office action. So there is nothing unusual about receiving one. Most importantly, an applicant is generally still able to file a response to continue pursuing patent protection even if a rejection is made. An office action just opens up the opportunity for back-and-forth dialog between the applicant and the examiner regarding patentability.

However, an important feature of an office action is that it establishes a response deadline. The applicant will need to take action to respond to the office action by that deadline in order to keep the patent application active. Failure to respond will result in abandonment and loss of rights. Extensions of time to respond to an office action are available, though such extensions carry an official fee.

In other countries, different terminology may be used. Office actions may instead be called notices of reasons for refusal, examination reports, search reports, written opinions, etc.

Trademark Office Actions

For federal trademark (and service mark) applications, an office action (or official letter) will state grounds for refusal of registration. Office actions are part of trademark “examination” or “prosecution”. Office actions are prepared by trademark examining attorneys assigned to particular applications. The office action indicates why the examiner believes a mark cannot be registered.

example trademark office action
Sample Trademark Office Action

Office actions will often reject part or all of the application for (allegedly) creating a “likelihood of confusion” with a conflicting prior registration. Though it is also common for trademark office actions to raise formalities requiring action or amendment, such as to change the wording in some part of the application.

Multiple office actions can be issued for a given trademark application. Though eventually an office action will be made “final”.

Trademark office actions are common. There is nothing unusual about receiving an office action for a trademark application. Most importantly, an applicant can generally still file a response to continue pursuing trademark registration even if a refusal is made. An office action just opens up the opportunity for a conversation between the applicant and the examiner regarding registrability.

An important feature of an office action is that usually establishes a response deadline. The trademark applicant will need to take action to respond to the office action by that deadline in order to keep the application active. Failure to respond will result in abandonment of the application. An extension of time to respond to an office action is available, though such extensions carry an official fee.

However, because U.S. trademark rights are based on use in commerce and registration is optional, abandonment of trademark application may not affect so-called “common law” rights stemming from ongoing use of a mark. Though the existence of a conflicting registration may mean there is a risk of infringement. And, if there has not yet been use of the mark, abandonment for failure to respond to an office action may result in a loss of a priority date—potentially allowing someone else to claim the mark.

Have an invention you would like to patent? Have a brand you would like to register as a trademark? Concerned about infringing someone else’s intellectual property? Is someone else infringing your IP? Need representation in an IP dispute? Austen is a patent attorney / trademark attorney who can help. These and other IP issues are his area of expertise. Contact Austen today to discuss.