Difference between revisions of "USA patent courts and appeals"

Revision as of 23:39, 9 September 2010

This article describes which bodies handle approval, rejection, and disputes of patent validity in the USA.

Patents are considered at the USPTO by an examiner
Disputes can be taken to the USPTO's Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI)
To contest a BPAI decision, you go to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC)^{[reference needed]}

When you sue someone for patent infringement, the validity of the patent can be called into question, and this litigation is in a District Court
- When suing someone, you might also apply to the International Trade Commission to have imports of their products blocked
  - Decisions by the ITC can be appealed to the CAFC.^[1]

To contest the district court's ruling, you go to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC)
- When the CAFC hears a case en banc, this means that all the judges participated, not just a subset; this is usually done for important cases where the CAFC wants to set a precedent
To contest the CAFC's ruling, you can apply to the Supreme Court (sometimes abbreviated "SCOTUS")
- This is called applying for certiorari
If the Supreme Court grants certiorari, they will rule on it with the highest authority of the USA

http://www.uspto.gov/go/dcom/bpai/index.html - The USPTO's BPAI
RECAP - an archive of "PACER" documents - this is only a small subset of US court documents, but it's the only publicly available repository

↑ "GPG v. ITC: Federal Circuit Review of ITC Determinations". http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/09/gpg-v-itc-federal-circuit-review-of-itc-determinations.html. "ITC determinations are subject to review by the Federal Circuit under the standards of the Administrative Procedure Act, which allows for de novo review of legal determinations and review of factual findings for substantial evidence."

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 * When you sue someone for patent infringement, the validity of the patent can be called into question, and this litigation is in a District Court
 ** When suing someone, you might also apply to the [[United States International Trade Commission|International Trade Commission]] to have imports of their products blocked
+*** Decisions by the ITC can be appealed to the CAFC.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2010/09/gpg-v-itc-federal-circuit-review-of-itc-determinations.html|title=GPG v. ITC: Federal Circuit Review of ITC Determinations|quote=ITC determinations are subject to review by the Federal Circuit under the standards of the Administrative Procedure Act, which allows for de novo review of legal determinations and review of factual findings for substantial evidence.}}</ref>