The Patent Shoppe
  • Home
  • Firm Information
    • Areas of Practice
    • Firm Philosophy
    • Services and Pricing
  • Personnel
    • Patrick J. Lavender
  • Insight
  • Links
  • Contact Us

What is the "prosecution history"?

11/22/2016

 
The prosecution history of a patent or patent application is (ideally) a complete record of the proceedings before the Patent Office.  It includes any remarks or representations that have been made by the applicant concerning the proper interpretation of the claims.

Claims must be interpreted the same way in litigation as they were in the Patent Office, otherwise applicants could treat their claims as a "nose of wax" -- to be twisted one way to avoid the prior art, and to be later twisted another way to encompass an accused product as infringing the patent.  This would hinder potential competitors who should be entitled to rely on the public record in judging the scope of the patentee's claims.

Comments are closed.

    Insight
    ( Official Blog )

    RSS Feed

© COPYRIGHT 2015, THE PATENT SHOPPE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS WEBSITE IS PUBLISHED BY THE LAW FIRM THE PATENT SHOPPE. ITS CONTENTS ARE NOT INTENDED TO SERVE AS LEGAL ADVICE OR LEGAL OPINION. SUCH ADVICE MAY ONLY BE PROVIDED WHEN RELATED TO SPECIFIC FACT SITUATIONS THAT THE PATENT SHOPPE HAS BEEN RETAINED AS COUNSEL TO ADDRESS.