Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%
Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.
Myths About Avoiding Prosecution History Estoppel
In the recent Federal Circuit case Honeywell, Int'l. Inc. v. Hamilton Sundstrand Corp., 370 F.3d 1131 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (en banc), the court held that a presumption of prosecution history estoppel arises when a patent applicant cancels an independent claim and rewrites its first dependent claim in independent form. Since then, patent attorneys and industry watchdogs have repeatedly misinterpreted the cause of this estoppel. Worse, many have advocated the dangerous strategy of initially writing dependent claims in independent form as a means of avoiding the estoppel. Such a strategy is useless in avoiding estoppel and highly counterproductive. Patent prosecutors should leave dependent claims in dependent form and, instead, avoid estoppel by using the strategies suggested below.
The patentee in Honeywell was asserting infringement under the doctrine of equivalents. Under the doctrine, a device that does not fall within the literal boundaries of a patent's claims may nevertheless infringe if it performs substantially the same function in substantially the same way to obtain substantially the same result as the claimed device. The doctrine is of great value to patentees because it lets them expand the scope of their patent to cover devices that are only insubstantially different from the literal scope of their claims.
Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough
There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.
Judge Rules Shaquille O'Neal Will Face Securities Lawsuit for Promotion, Sale of NFTs
A federal district court in Miami, FL, has ruled that former National Basketball Association star Shaquille O'Neal will have to face a lawsuit over his promotion of unregistered securities in the form of cryptocurrency tokens and that he was a "seller" of these unregistered securities.
Why So Many Great Lawyers Stink at Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It
Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?
Blockchain Domains: New Developments for Brand Owners
Blockchain domain names offer decentralized alternatives to traditional DNS-based domain names, promising enhanced security, privacy and censorship resistance. However, these benefits come with significant challenges, particularly for brand owners seeking to protect their trademarks in these new digital spaces.
Coverage Issues Stemming from Dry Cleaner Contamination Suits
In recent years, there has been a growing number of dry cleaners claiming to be "organic," "green," or "eco-friendly." While that may be true with respect to some, many dry cleaners continue to use a cleaning method involving the use of a solvent called perchloroethylene, commonly known as perc. And, there seems to be an increasing number of lawsuits stemming from environmental problems associated with historic dry cleaning operations utilizing this chemical.