This post was first published on 15th August, 2012.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will publish final rules in the Federal Register, relating to implementation of three administrative trial provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA); inter partes review, post-grant review, and the transitional program for covered business method patents. The administrative trial final rules offer a third party a timely, cost-effective alternative to district court litigation for challenging the patentability of a…
This post was first published on November 26th, 2012.
Prior art forms the core of novelty and inventive step analysis and also plays an important role in the assessment of other requirements. For negating novelty, the basic principle is: all elements of an invention must be present in a single prior art, expressly or inherently, supplemented by knowledge of a skilled artisan. For making an invention obvious, a combination of prior art elements that form part of the invention must be…