It appears that this is a continuation from a previous application filed in at least 1998, and most likely will be able to claim a priority date of Feb 24 1997 (possibly May 10, 1995, I am not sure how strong a "USPTO Disclosue Document" is...)
Thats a pretty long time ago. Also its called "prior art" not "previous art."
Like the IP attorney above said, I am not saying that the USPTO doesn't screw up and issue patents that it shouldn't... but chances are, the inventor paid someone to do a rather extensive prior art search (usually done by the firm who does the prosecution of the patent). And the USPTO does in fact have a pretty sophisticated search engine.
Then on top of it, the firm they choose to litigate with (not always the same firm, for numerous reason I am not going to explain at this time) most likely did their own review of the patent and the prosecution history (especially if the firm is hired on a contingent fee, which may be possible depending on the size and financial situation of the plaintiff).
I know that there are a lot of frivilous lawsuits that get filed. But it also gets annoying when every time someone opts to defend their intellectual property, (most likely jealous) people on the internet attack the inventor or company the patent is assigned to... calling them leeches or scum. Then (in order to sound as if they know something about patent law) they throw out the one patent term they know... "prior art"... in an attempt to sound credible (or in some cases they screw that up too lol).
Prior Art would have to be before the 1997 (or 1995) date. Any claims in the patent at issue were derived from the same specification used in the initial provisional application (Feb 25 1997). If the items claimed in the patent at issue were NOT derived from that specification, then the patent could not be considered a continuation of the first patent and would not be able to benefit from the earlier filing date. It would be considered new material and have a priority date of Sept. 19, 2001.
Hope that helps to clear things up for some of you. Or if you want, you can just keep yelling "prior art!" and "invalid!" lol
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
anonymouspimp @ Mar 20th 2007 5:16PM
It appears that this is a continuation from a previous application filed in at least 1998, and most likely will be able to claim a priority date of Feb 24 1997 (possibly May 10, 1995, I am not sure how strong a "USPTO Disclosue Document" is...)
Thats a pretty long time ago. Also its called "prior art" not "previous art."
Like the IP attorney above said, I am not saying that the USPTO doesn't screw up and issue patents that it shouldn't... but chances are, the inventor paid someone to do a rather extensive prior art search (usually done by the firm who does the prosecution of the patent). And the USPTO does in fact have a pretty sophisticated search engine.
Then on top of it, the firm they choose to litigate with (not always the same firm, for numerous reason I am not going to explain at this time) most likely did their own review of the patent and the prosecution history (especially if the firm is hired on a contingent fee, which may be possible depending on the size and financial situation of the plaintiff).
I know that there are a lot of frivilous lawsuits that get filed. But it also gets annoying when every time someone opts to defend their intellectual property, (most likely jealous) people on the internet attack the inventor or company the patent is assigned to... calling them leeches or scum. Then (in order to sound as if they know something about patent law) they throw out the one patent term they know... "prior art"... in an attempt to sound credible (or in some cases they screw that up too lol).
Prior Art would have to be before the 1997 (or 1995) date. Any claims in the patent at issue were derived from the same specification used in the initial provisional application (Feb 25 1997). If the items claimed in the patent at issue were NOT derived from that specification, then the patent could not be considered a continuation of the first patent and would not be able to benefit from the earlier filing date. It would be considered new material and have a priority date of Sept. 19, 2001.
Hope that helps to clear things up for some of you. Or if you want, you can just keep yelling "prior art!" and "invalid!" lol