Protecting Your Nanotechnology Inventions – Part 4: Don’t Forget About Trade Secret Protection

By Jonathan L. Kennedy

When you have a new invention, the right question to ask at the outset is whether you want to consider patenting it. This is important because many common activities in research and commercialization can create a bar to patent protection or at least start a one-year clock by which a patent must be filed. Some […]

Section 121 safe harbor applies only to divisional, not continuation-in-part; later patent invalid

In a decision last week, the Federal Circuit construed the scope of § 121's allowances for subsequent patent applications directed toward nonelected inventions in response to a restriction requirement. There were three patents at issue, one directed to pharmaceutical compounds, one to compositions containing those compounds, and a third covering methods of suing the compounds. […]

“Ordinary creativity” of one of ordinary skill in the art used to show claims not indefinite

In a decision today the Federal Circuit held that the district court had incorrectly determined that AllVoice Computing PLC's patent was invalid for indefiniteness and failure to meet the best mode requirement. In reaching its decision, the Federal Circuit determined that the lower court had used the prosecution history of the patent to interpret the […]