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Technology Stocks : Interdigital Communication(IDCC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D.J.Smyth who wrote (3962)	2/15/2000 6:04:00 PM
From: Gus	Respond to of 5195

Useful reference materials: The Federal Circuit Reinterprets the Chiuminatta Decision The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently held that the determination of structural equivalents when deciding literal infringement under 35 U.S.C. 112, 6 hinges upon the "overall structure" disclosed, not the individual components within that structure. mwe.com The Scope of Equivalents....Should Vary Depending on Importance of the Means-Plus-Function Recitation to the Invention as a Whole One of the most important issues in patent law is the scope of coverage provided by the patent claims. The public interest requires that claims not receive overly broad interpretations that deprive the public of access to technology or overly narrow interpretations that deprive patentees of protection which they rightfully deserve. Short- changing patentees on the scope of patent protection can adversely affect the public interest in encouraging technologic innovation.1 A particularly troublesome problem is the inflexibility of the courts in construing the scope of protection provided by means-plus-function limitations in patent claims. Means-plus-function limitations have been used for many years and are frequently the best, if not the only way, to appropriately cover an invention in its full scope. There are many unexpired United States patents that contain claims with means-plus-function limitations. escm.com The Doctrine of Equivalents Article 8, clause 8 of the United States Constitution grants Congress the power to promote progress in Science and the Useful Arts by granting to inventors for limited times the exclusive rights to their inventions. Congress has implemented this power through the patent statute. On a broad scale, the patent statute represents a bargain between the public and the inventor. In exchange for disclosing, fully describing, and enabling the invention, the inventor is given the right to exclude others from making, using, offering to sell, selling, or importing into the United States the invention for a period of twenty years, in general, from the date of the earliest patent application relied upon. The right to exclude provides the inventor with incentive to invest time, effort, and money into the creative process. The description and enablement requirements permit the public to have both knowledge about and notice of the invention. Knowledge about the invention allows the public to learn from and build upon the inventor's contribution. Notice of the invention allows the public to be informed of the patent's boundaries to avoid infringement, and to know what must be achieved to obtain additional patents in the particular field of invention. In that regard, the notice function also provides a valuable incentive to invent, because a patent boundary that is precise encourages more design around activity than a patent boundary that is elusive. The doctrine of equivalents maintains the incentive function of patent law by giving the patentee a meaningful benefit from the inventive effort. It accomplishes this by broadening a patent's exclusionary boundaries beyond the easily avoided literal language of a claim. In words often quoted from the United States Supreme Court, the doctrine of equivalents prevents 'the unscrupulous copyist [from making] unimportant and insubstantial changes and substitutions in the patent which, though adding nothing, would be enough to take the copied matter outside the claim, and hence outside the reach of the law.' Unfortunately, the broadening performed by the doctrine of equivalents also makes the patent's exclusionary boundaries less precise. It therefore decreases the ability of the patent claims to provide meaningful notice to the public. Consequently, the doctrine simultaneously increases the incentive function of patent law and decreases the notice function (with its attendant incentives). Due to this inherent conflict, rules making up the doctrine of equivalents must be carefully balanced to maximize the combined positive effects of incentive and notice, in order that 'progress of science and the useful arts' may be effectively promoted. oake.com

To: D.J.Smyth who wrote (3962)	2/15/2000 6:48:00 PM
From: Gus	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 5195

At least, Bux has acknowledged that IDC's patents are pioneering. It certainly explains why he is trying desperately and persistently to frame the 1994 cross-licensing agreement as a sale of patent rights that gives Qualcomm rights that fit his extravagant fantasies about Qualcomm's place in the world of global broadband. Pathetic effort, but at least it's a very major concession from a very minor intellect with a reptilian sense of honor. a. Pioneer Status One factor that has been used to determine the permissible range of equivalents of a patent is its status as either a 'pioneer' patent or an 'improvement' patent. Pioneer patents typically are afforded a very broad range of equivalents, and improvement patents are granted a much narrower range. The Supreme Court has defined a pioneer patent as 'a patent covering a function never before performed, a wholly novel device, or one of such novelty and importance as to mark a distinct step in the progress of the art, as distinguished from a mere improvement or perfection of what has gone before.' The status of a patent is determined by comparing it with the prior art. The observation that a pioneer patent should be entitled to a broader range of equivalents than an improvement patent was made early in the context of mechanical inventions. When an invention was claimed that performed a new function or operated on a new principle, the inventor could exclude all other forms of the invention that operated on the same principle and performed the same function. However, when a patent was obtained on an improvement to the principle, the inventor could only exclude other forms of the narrow improvement, and not other forms of the original broad principle. It was therefore said that a pioneer patent was afforded a broader range of equivalents than an improvement patent. A different view of pioneering patents has been expressed in some cases from the Federal Circuit. These cases state that pioneer status is not a separate rule of analysis, but rather a conclusion or effect that naturally flows from an absence of prior art and the prosecution history. In other words, the broader range of equivalents afforded a pioneer patent is not due to its status as a 'pioneer,' but rather due to the absence of blocking prior art and limiting prosecution history estoppel. These cases further state that a 'pioneer' patent is not 'a separate class of invention, carrying a unique body of law. Rather, there is a 'wide range of technological advance between pioneering breakthrough and modest improvement [that] accommodates gradations in scope of equivalency.' Where a particular invention falls on this spectrum 'depends on all the circumstances, and is decided as a factual matter.' In each case the trier of fact must 'balance the competing public policies of avoiding 'a fraud on the patent', and the need for reasonable certainty by the public as to the scope of the patent grant.' oake.com