Design Patents

In an article published in the November 2023 issue of ALM’s IP Strategist, Marshall Gerstein Partner Sandip H. Patel provides guidance to patent owners following a recent Federal Circuit decision to uphold the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to reject claims in four separate reexamination cases due to obviousness-type double patenting (ODP).

“This decision is important because it expands ODP, a doctrine judges developed long ago, when patents received a term of 17 years from the date of issue, rather than 20 years from the date of filing,” Patel wrote in the article. “Unless overturned, this decision will significantly affect patent families that have patents with different expiration dates.”

The article details some of the decision’s consequences and explores potential patent prosecution strategies.

Subscribers may access the article here, and at the firm’s PTAB Watch blogsite here.