{"id":1715,"date":"2017-08-21T11:39:23","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T15:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1715"},"modified":"2017-08-22T22:54:30","modified_gmt":"2017-08-23T02:54:30","slug":"a-foolish-consistency-may-be-the-hobgoblin-of-little-minds-but-it-is-the-hallmark-of-a-successful-applicantpatent-owner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1715","title":{"rendered":"A Foolish Consistency may be the Hobgoblin of Little Minds, but it is the Hallmark of a Successful Applicant\/Patent Owner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In In re Walter, [2016-2256] (August 21, 2017), the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB&#8217;s decision in\u00a0<em>ex parte<\/em> reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 7,513,711\u00a0that all twelve claims of the patent lack adequate written description and are indefinite\u00a0under 35 U.S.C. \u00a7 112.<\/p>\n<p>While the opinion is non-precedential, it still has a simple, but valuable lesson for applicants and patent owners. \u00a0During the reexamination Walter amended the claims (directed to artificial reefs for cultivating marine life) to require a \u201csupport structure\u201d that was \u201cblock-like.\u201d \u00a0The Examiner found this use of &#8220;block-like indefinite because Walter\u2019s proposed\u00a0construction conflicted with the dictionary meaning of the\u00a0term \u201cblock.\u201d \u00a0During the appeal to the PTAB and during the appeal to the Federal Circuit, Walter alternated between two different meanings of the claim term &#8220;block-like,&#8221; and therein is the lesson of the case. \u00a0If the applicant\/patent owner can&#8217;t decide what a claim term means, then it is hard for the Board or a court to conclude that the term is sufficiently definite.<\/p>\n<p>No-one can say whether one of the possible constructions would have satisfied 35 USC\u00a0\u00a7112, but presenting two possible constructions certainly does not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In In re Walter, [2016-2256] (August 21, 2017), the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB&#8217;s decision in\u00a0ex parte reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 7,513,711\u00a0that all twelve claims of the patent lack adequate written description and are indefinite\u00a0under 35 U.S.C. \u00a7 112. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1715\">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":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indefiniteness"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715","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=1715"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1717,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1715\/revisions\/1717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}