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Court Blocks Controversial New Patent Rules

Posted by Zonk on from the walking-a-fine-line dept.

An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek is reporting that a court in Virginia has issued an injunction against controversial new patent rules that were supposed to go into effect tomorrow. The court granted a motion filed by GlaxoSmithKline, which is suing the US patent office over the issue. Among other things, the new rules would limit the extent to which existing patent applications can be modified. The patent office says the new rules would speed up the patent process, but critics say they hurt inventors."

3 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. A much better explanation of this case: by KiahZero · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2007/10/surprise-pto-co.html

    Interesting that there were no amicus briefs for the Patent Office.

    --
    I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
  2. Re:I'm curious... by Janthkin · · Score: 3, Informative

    so basically the argument that is being made is that if company A patents a technology/drug whatever and finds a new use for it they can extend the patent to include that finding? To what end?

    Here's the 10 cent version: continuations are used when:
    a) your inventor comes up with a new way of extending his invention (continuation in part);
    b) you disclosed multiple distinct inventions in the original application, but only filed claims at one of them (continuation);
    c) the patent office is being dense, and you have to argue your claims repeatedly (request for continuing examination); or
    d) the patent office grants some of your claims, and you want to get an issued patent AND continue to argue about the others (continuation).

  3. Re:Playing devil's advocate by Anonymous+Crowhead · · Score: 3, Informative

    I guess my point was that if you refer to common things (to those skilled in the trade) in your claims, you are going to get hit with prior art because the reviewer latches on to those things not understanding what they are. If in your claim you write "for example, pancreatic cancer", they tend to think that is to the focus of the claim when it isn't. The prior art is going to be the thousands of published articles that just happen to mention both those terms.

    Either way, you can take decades old technology and discover novel, patentable ways to use it. My example was contrived, sure.