{"id":1562,"date":"2017-05-10T13:58:21","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T17:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1562"},"modified":"2017-05-25T16:58:15","modified_gmt":"2017-05-25T20:58:15","slug":"written-description-lacking-where-nothing-in-the-specification-suggests-inventor-contemplated-claimed-invention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1562","title":{"rendered":"Written Description Lacking Where Nothing in the Specification Suggests Inventor Contemplated Claimed Invention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cafc.uscourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/opinions-orders\/16-1143.Opinion.5-9-2017.1.PDF\">Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Cirrex Systems, LLC<\/a>, [2016-1143, 2016-1144](May 10, 2017), the Federal Circuit\u00a0affirmed in part, and reversed in part the Board&#8217;s decision in\u00a0inter partes reexamination\u00a0of U.S. Patent\u00a0No. 6,415,082. \u00a0Cisco appealed the patentability finding of five of the claims, and Cirrex appealed the rejection of the remainder of the claims. \u00a0The Federal Circuit found that\u00a0all of the claims on appeal were\u00a0unpatentable for lack of written description support.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8216;082 patent is directed to the field of fiber optic\u00a0communication signals. \u00a0At issue was the claim requirement of discrete attenuation of the various wavelengths of light, which the parties agreed must\u00a0occur in the planar lightguide circuit (PLC). \u00a0However, there was not written description of how discrete attenuation could occur within the PLC, rather that attenuation of all of the wavelengths (i.e. collective attenuation). \u00a0The Federal Circuit agreed twith Cisco that the claims are directed\u00a0to subject matter that is indisputably missing from the\u00a0\u2019082 specification.<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Circuit said that the \u2019082 specification\u00a0does not meet the quid pro quo required by the\u00a0written description requirement for the disputed claims\u00a0because demultiplexing light to manipulate separately the\u00a0intensities of individual wavelengths of light while the\u00a0light is still inside the PLC is a technically difficult solution\u00a0that the \u2019082 specification does not solve, let alone\u00a0contemplate or suggest as a goal or desired result. The Federal Circuit added:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Nothing\u00a0in the \u2019082 specification explains how individual\u00a0wavelengths of light are separately manipulated while\u00a0those wavelengths are still inside the PLC. Nor is there\u00a0anything in the specification that suggests that the inventor\u00a0contemplated that approach. To the contrary, the \u2019082 specification expressly describes using the PLC to separate\u00a0wavelengths of light to allow the manipulation of\u00a0each individual wavelength\u2014outside the PLC\u2014before it\u00a0is rerouted back into the PLC for remultiplexing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Board also rejected Cirrex&#8217;s arguments that the claims requiring a diverting element were supported by adequate written description. \u00a0 The Board concluded that the totality of\u00a0of the disclosure did not establish that the inventors\u00a0possessed an embodiment with a diverting element\u00a0inside the PLC, and the Federal Circuit agreed.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Cirrex Systems, LLC, [2016-1143, 2016-1144](May 10, 2017), the Federal Circuit\u00a0affirmed in part, and reversed in part the Board&#8217;s decision in\u00a0inter partes reexamination\u00a0of U.S. Patent\u00a0No. 6,415,082. \u00a0Cisco appealed the patentability finding of five of the claims, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1562\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-written-description"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1563,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions\/1563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}