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Reconsidering Estoppel: Patent Administration And The Failure Of Festo, R. Polk Wagner
Reconsidering Estoppel: Patent Administration And The Failure Of Festo, R. Polk Wagner
All Faculty Scholarship
Last Term, in Festo Corporation v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabashuki Co., the United States Supreme Court missed perhaps the most important opportunity for patent law reform in two decades. At the core of the failure to grasp the implications of "prosecution history estoppel" - a judicially-crafted principle limiting the enforceable scope of patents based on acts occurring during their application process - is the heretofore universal (but ultimately unsupportable) view of the doctrine as an arbitrary ex post limitation on patent scope. This Article demonstrates the serious flaws in this traditionalist approach, and develops a new theory of prosecution history …
Direct Judicial Review Of Pto Decisions: Jurisdictional Proposals, Thomas G. Field Jr
Direct Judicial Review Of Pto Decisions: Jurisdictional Proposals, Thomas G. Field Jr
Law Faculty Scholarship
Judicial review of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") decisions is complex-- perhaps more than that of any other agency. One source of complexity is that courts review its decisions both collaterally and directly.
One goal of this article is to map possible routes to judicial review and suggest strategies for avoiding jurisdictional uncertainties and delay. The core thesis of this article, however, is that parties should not need to cope with arcane review schemes. Direct PTO review can and ought to be simplified. This can be accomplished by adjusting the Federal Circuit's original and appellate jurisdiction.
Chevron Deference To The Uspto At The Federal Circuit, Thomas G. Field Jr.
Chevron Deference To The Uspto At The Federal Circuit, Thomas G. Field Jr.
Law Faculty Scholarship
Courts have long deferred to agency views of law, but they have also often refused. The Federal Circuit, too, defers on some occasions but not others. This paper examines the apparent inconsistency in its cases.