Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: limtex who wrote (18202)	11/11/1998 9:38:00 AM
From: JGoren	Respond to of 152472

U.S. Supreme Court Limits Time for Patent Filings No idea if this has the slightest impact on the Ericy-Qcom lawsuit, but this is significant development for IPR companies. >>>> Washington, Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court limited the time inventors have to file for patent protection, ruling that statutory deadlines can expire even before an invention is ready for use. In a unanimous ruling, the nation's highest court said that, once inventors have prepared drawings or full descriptions, they have only a year to sell their products before filing patent applications. The court sided with a unit of PCD Inc.'s Wells Electronics Inc. in its fight against a patent infringement suit. The ruling limited a favorite tool of inventors, who often want to gauge whether a product will be successful -- and which of several versions they'll actually sell -- before they spend time and money on a patent. The case could be particularly important in the software industry, where developers often market concepts years before an end product is actually complete. ''You will have to file earlier rather than later and basically file on as many devices as you can, as the development progresses,'' said Robert H. Fischer, who filed a friend-of-the- court brief on behalf of a group of intellectual property lawyers favoring a more generous deadline. The key legal question was the starting date for a grace period that gives inventors one year to file for a patent once they meet certain criteria. Writing for the court, Justice John Paul Stevens rejected arguments that the grace period should begin only when the invention is ''reduced to practice,'' or ready for use. He said that standard would upset the balance struck under U.S. patent law between encouraging innovation and limiting the period of monopoly power that a successful patent application gives the inventor. ''One can prove that an invention is complete and ready for patenting before it has actually been reduced to practice,'' Stevens wrote. Pfaff's Invention The case before the high court involved a patent- infringement suit filed against Wells by inventor Wayne Pfaff over a socket used to hold leadless semiconductor chip carriers while they are being tested. Pfaff developed the product after Texas Instruments Inc. approached him. In 1981, Texas Instruments sent Pfaff a written purchase order conditioned on the socket functioning to the company's satisfaction. Pfaff, however, continued to make changes to the product for some time. In 1982 -- more than a year after he received the purchase order but less than a year after he completed the product -- Pfaff filed for patent protection. Wells, later acquired by Peabody, Massachusetts-based PCD, then began offering a similar socket, and Pfaff sued. Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit threw out Pfaff's case, saying the patent was invalid because Pfaff waited too long to apply for it. The court, which handles virtually all appeals in American patent cases, said the grace period begins as soon as the invention is both on the market and ''substantially complete.'' That marked a change from an earlier rule that said the grace period doesn't begin until the invention is ''fully'' complete. Pfaff argued that the ''fully complete,'' or ''reduced to practice,'' test was a clearer standard than ''substantially complete.'' The Supreme Court invoked a slightly different standard, agreeing that the ''substantially complete'' standard was too vague. Stevens said the grace-period would begin when an inventor has ''prepared drawings or other descriptions of the invention that were sufficiently specific to enable a person skilled in the art to practice the invention.'' In Pfaff's case, Stevens said, the inventor showed Texas Instruments a drawing of his invention -- triggering the grace period -- more than a year before filing for a patent. The case is Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, 97-1130. >>>>>