The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit clarified that provisional rights under a patent do not apply when a patent issues after its expiration date. This decision stems from Donald Forest's U.S. Patent Application No. 15/391,116, submitted after the priority application expired. The court rejected Forest's claims for entitlement to provisional rights, stating that issuing a patent with no term could paradoxically favor the patentee. The ruling reinforces the necessity for a valid patent term to benefit from provisional rights.
Under this view, the patentee could actually benefit from having a patent issue after its expiration date because the patent's provisional-rights term would extend beyond the patent's twenty-year term.
The CAFC described the case at hand as "atypical" because Forest submitted the '116 application... one year after the application to which Forest's application claims priority would expire.
Forest argued that patentees are always entitled to provisional rights, regardless of when the patent issues; the court disagreed, highlighting potential misinterpretations.
The CAFC clarified that provisional rights in a patent do not apply when a patent would issue after its expiration date, rejecting Forest's claims.
Collection
[
|
...
]