Maiorana Patent Law, PA

Help With Patent Interferences

Interference practice will be around for a while. Patent applications filed before March 15, 2013 are subject to the pre-AIA laws. This means they are subject to Interferences.

If you are a patent attorney in private practice or a corporate patent attorney, and receive a notice declaring an Interference, time is of the essence. There are several very short time frames. The short time frames are not difficult, but they do need to be addressed.

Then there will likely be a conference call set up 30 days after the mailing of the declaration of interference. Prior to that date, you will need to have a list of motions prepared. You need to define the legal scope of what motions you hope to file. The Board will likely ask you questions to decide whether they should authorize the motion or not. So you need some understanding of the scope and background of the dispute. Remember, Patent Interferences are when 2 patent applications, or a patent application and an issued patent, have overlapping claims, but are filed with different inventive entities. The US Patent Office needs to resolve the conflict.

In a recent case, the opposing side did what I refer to as “stealth” provocation of an Interference. They filed the exact same document, and copied all of the amendments up until the positive granting of an appeal. They requested that their application was not published. So the senior party had no way to even know this was happening. Then out of the blue, they get a declaration of Interference, with the very short time frames mentioned above.

If this happens to one of your clients, give us a call. We can either help on a consultation basis, or work as lead or backup counsel directly on the Interference. We work at a substantially more reasonable rate than the Interference “experts” in Washington D.C. or New York City. Do yourself a favor, give us a call.

In short, we can work either way. Just give one of our patent attorneys a call to discuss your patent situation. MI - 586-498-0670 or CA - 408-890-6549.