IP Blog
Patent Term Adjustment
Terminal Disclaimer to “Expedite” Patent Prosecution?
A District Court committed error, says a Federal Circuit panel, “by presuming that terminally disclaimed continuation patents are patentably indistinct variations of their parent patents without analyzing the scope of the patent claims.” SimpleAir, Inc. v. Google LLC, No. 2016-2738 (March 12, 2018) (precedential) (opinion by Judge Lourie, joined by Judges Reyna and Chen). The question here was whether SimpleAir...
Patent Term Adjustment Can Be Reduced Even Without “Actual Delay” in Prosecution
In Gilead Sciences, Inc. v. Lee, the Federal Circuit that supplemental applicant submissions during patent prosecution need not incur “actual delay” to be counted as a reduction in calculating patent term adjustment (PTA). 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 2828 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 26, 2015). Plaintiff Gilead Sciences, Inc. (“Gilead”) had appealed the decision of the Eastern District of Virginia’s grant of...