{"id":99,"date":"2014-02-20T09:37:05","date_gmt":"2014-02-20T14:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=99"},"modified":"2014-02-20T09:37:38","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T14:37:38","slug":"foreseeable-equivalents-can-be-infringing-equivalents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=99","title":{"rendered":"Foreseeable Equivalents Can Be Infringing Equivalents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <em>Ring &amp; Pinion Service Inc. v. ARB Corporation LTD<\/em>., [2013-1238] (February 19, 2013), the Federal Circuit held that foreseeable equivalents could be infringing equivalents.\u00a0 Through stipulations, the parties set up the question perfectly, agreeing that\u00a0if a foreseeable equivlent\u00a0at the time of filng could infringe, the patent was infringed, but if a foreseeable equivalent at the time of infringe could not infringe, the patent was not infringed.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court, stating: &#8220;There is not, nor has there ever been, a foreseeability limitation on the application of the doctrine of equivalents.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Circuit noted that\u00a0it has long been clear that known interchangeability weighs in favor of finding infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, citing <em>Warner-Jenkinson Co. v. Hilton Davis Chem. Co.<\/em>, 520 U.S. 17, 36 (1997); <em>Graver Tank &amp; Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Prods. Co.<\/em>, 339 U.S. 605, 609 (1950); <em>Abraxis Bioscience, Inc. v. Mayne Pharma (USA) Inc.<\/em>, 467 F.3d 1370, 1382 (Fed. Cir. 2006); <em>Interactive Pictures Corp. v. Infinite Pictures, Inc.<\/em>, 274 F.3d 1371, 1383 (Fed. Cir. 2001); and <em>Corning Glass Works v. Sumitomo Elec. U.S.A., Inc.<\/em>, 868 F.2d 1251, 1261 (Fed. Cir. 1989), and concluding that &#8220;[e]xcluding equivalents that were foreseeable at the time of patenting would directly conflict with these holdings that \u201cknown interchangeability\u201d supports infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.<\/p>\n<p><strong>COMMENT:<\/strong> The defendant may have been confused by the foreseeability test of <span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><em>Festo Corp. v. Skoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co.<\/em>, 535 U.S. 722 (2002), which determines the scope of prosecution history estoppel created by a narrowing claim amendment, and thus indirectly the scope of infringing equivlents.\u00a0 Patent prosecutors can breath easier, but should still strive to write claims broad enough to literally cover foreseeable equivalents.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Ring &amp; Pinion Service Inc. v. ARB Corporation LTD., [2013-1238] (February 19, 2013), the Federal Circuit held that foreseeable equivalents could be infringing equivalents.\u00a0 Through stipulations, the parties set up the question perfectly, agreeing that\u00a0if a foreseeable equivlent\u00a0at the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=99\">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":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-patent-law"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","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=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}