How long does a reissue take?
Further, patent owners can time the filing of reissue patent applications to serve their strategic needs knowing that, on average, reissue patent applications take over two years to issue.
What is a reissue application?
A reissue application is filed to correct an error in the patent, where, as a result of the error, the patent is deemed wholly or partly inoperative or invalid. If there is no error in the patent, the patent will not be reissued.
What does intervening rights mean?
The defense of intervening rights allows a party whose products infringe a reissued or reexamined patent to continue to use or sell specific products that were made, purchased, or used before the reissuance or reexamination under certain conditions.
When can a reissue be filed?
A reissue application may be filed when a patent, through error, is deemed wholly or partly inoperative or invalid. A detailed discussion of the laws, rules and procedures governing reissue applications may be found in the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) Chapter 1400 (9th Ed., March 2014).
Who can file a reissue?
37 CFR 1.172 Reissue Applicant. (a) The reissue applicant is the original patentee, or the current patent owner if there has been an assignment. A reissue application must be accompanied by the written consent of all assignees, if any, currently owning an undivided interest in the patent.
What are equitable intervening rights?
As one court noted, ”[t]he first sentence and one-half of the second sentence of 35 U.S.C. § 252 appears not to relate to a patented process. The only reference to a patented process occurs in the last half of the second sentence,” which addresses equitable intervening rights. 40. Equitable Intervening Rights.
What is a reexamination patent?
Patent reexamination, sometimes referred to as ex parte reexamination, is a proceeding involving only the patent owner and the USPTO. When a third party files a request for reexamination of a patent, the third party does not participate after the filing.
Are reissue applications published?
While a reissue application is not published under 37 CFR 1.211, the reissue application is published pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 122(b)(1)(A) via an announcement in the Official Gazette (and public availability of the file contents) per 37 CFR 1.11(b). Such a publication does not preclude the filing of a protest.
What is the term patent?
A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention. In other words, patent protection means that the invention cannot be commercially made, used, distributed, imported, or sold by others without the patent owner’s consent.