Attorney:
Derek Lightner, Ph.D.
April 10, 2023
On March 15, 2023, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued an opinion in the appeal of US Appl. Ser. No. 15/395,642, Ex parte Chris Fish (Appeal 2022-001172, Technology Center 1700, Appellate Patent Judges Adrienne Lepiane HANLON, Catherine Q. TIMM, and Jeffrey B. ROBERTSON) reversing Examiner Nathan H. EMPIE’s finding of obviousness based on an alleged motivation to modify beyond the range taught by the prior art.<... Read more
Attorney:
Derek Lightner, Ph.D.
February 7, 2023
In the matter of Ex parte Taleb, et al., the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) determined on January 31, 2023, that an examiner (James Anderson, supported by Supervisory Patent Examiners, Jeffrey Lundgren and Kortney Klinkel) failed to establish the obviousness of claims by failing to establish a reasonable expectation of success in achieving a claimed result of a method claim. The claim in question recited<... Read more
Attorney:
Derek Lightner, Ph.D.
November 11, 2022
On October 19, 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) overturned the obviousness rejection of a claim to an aqueous dispersion. Claim 1 of the application in question, USSN 16/083,182 (the 182 Application), recited<... Read more
Attorney:
Derek Lightner, Ph.D.
August 2, 2022
On July 22, 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) reversed an examiner’s assertion of obviousness in the case of Ex parte Jaeger (Appeal 2021-002641, USSN 15/559,117). The issue in Jaeger was whether the addition of known element to a prior art device was obvious where the combination was not consistent the purpose / operation of the prior art device.<... Read more
Attorney:
Derek Lightner, Ph.D.
May 18, 2022
The Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) recently overruled an examiner’s finding of obviousness of claims premised on a “missing” moisture permeability feature in a composition designed for moisture absorption.<... Read more
Attorney:
Derek Lightner, Ph.D.
March 8, 2022
The PTAB in Ex parte Sturgis (Appeal 2021-002857; USSN 15/696,282) reversed an examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims for failing to sufficiently establish obviousness via routine optimization The reversal was mainly based upon plural selections being claimed without any particular directions on choosing in the prior art and an unpredicted effect based on the cited art.<... Read more
Attorney:
Derek Lightner, Ph.D.
January 31, 2022
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) overturned the examiner’s obviousness finding in Ex parte PETER KAPITAN and ALEXANDER SAJTOS (Appeal 2021-001272; USSN 14/409,522) substantially on the basis of a recitation of “… the solvent … is an alkane selected from a group consisting of pentane and hexane” distinguishing over the prior art description of the optional use of petroleum ether, with evidence that petroleum ether is not simply pentane or hexane.<... Read more
Attorney:
Derek Lightner, Ph.D.
December 27, 2021
In Ex parte FRANÇOIS ROY, JONATHAN CLOUTIER, and VINCENT TANGUAY (Appeal 2021-000050; USSN 13/966,396), the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) recently reversed an examiner’s finding of obviousness in a rather involved rejection based upon four references, which hinged upon the presence of “thermofusable glue droplets providing a mechanical retention force to retain the wood strips in an interconnected spaced-apart relationship.”<... Read more
Attorney:
Derek Lightner, Ph.D.
April 26, 2021
In a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision issued on April 16, 2021, in Ex parte Bhalla, Luthra, Reid I, and Levason (Appeal 2021-001535, USSN 14/373,413), the PTAB was presented with the issue of the obviousness of an imaging agent comprising an 18F-labelled compound of a formula below, with the relevant moieties indicated. The main claim covered a moderate genus of compounds[1], and was rejected over a combination of three references.<... Read more