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fiveyes · 08-06-2003, 06:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Groove
Nice find

Do you happen to know whether there's a limit to the number of times a different party can file a re-examination request, ie could 50 webmasters each file their own separate re-examination request?

Anybody can file as many Reexamination Applications as they want. Just keep in mind that it's two big bills each filing.

Someone did point out that I should mention that there is an internal PTO Board of Appeals where the findings of the (re)examiner can be contested and that there are rare instances where it does escalate into the court system past that point.

This is not an easy thing to attempt, btw. The only evidence you can submit is hard fact with a written argument how it should be applied to limit the scope of one or more claims made within a patent. To do it correctly, you have to be familiar with exactly what the claims are of the invention and have at least one document that was published before the filing date of the patent that shows where the claim(s) you are asking to be reexamined are either too broadly written, obvious from existing works, in common usage at the time, or otherwise invalid as written.

What won't work is, for example, stating that the owner of a patent is abusing their grant by trying to inappropriately apply it to such and such. To accomplish that same end, you have to find specifics within the claims that you can attack with prior art that was overlooked in the original consideration of the Application. Once a claim has been narrowed or invalidated this way, the Patent as a whole will be then modified into a narrower definition of what it actually covers.