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This article describes which bodies handle approval, rejection, and disputes of patent validity in the [[USA]]. | This article describes which bodies handle approval, rejection, and disputes of patent validity in the [[USA]]. | ||
Revision as of 20:08, 6 August 2012
and appeals in:
Related articles:
This article describes which bodies handle approval, rejection, and disputes of patent validity in the USA.
Contents
The stages of litigation
- 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]
- When suing someone, you might also apply to the International Trade Commission to have imports of their products blocked
- 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
Hierarchy and vacating lower rulings
When the Supreme Court gives its opinion on a case, not only does this opinion override the opinion of the lower court, but the Supreme Court can also issue a "grant-vacate-remand order" to nullify certain other rulings of lower courts which may give turn out differently in the light of the Supreme Court's newer ruling.
For example, in the 2009 Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. case the CAFC upheld a patent, saying that it passed the machine-or-transformation test.[2] (The US Supreme Court took the case in 2012 and disagreed.) After tweaking that test in 2010 in the Bilski v. Kappos ruling, the Supreme Court vacated the CAFC's 2009 Mayo ruling and ordered a retrial.[3] (In the retrial, the CAFC reached the same conclusion; the Supreme Court then agreed to hear the Mayo case.)
A Supreme Court ruling not only overrides the preceding CAFC ruling, but the Supreme Court can also vacate other court rulings of lower courts that may
Judge's titles
At the ITC: administrative law judge
At the CAFC: Circuit Judge NAME
At the Supreme Court: Justice NAME
Related pages on ESP Wiki
External links
- 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
References
- ↑ "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."
- ↑ http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2009/09/patentable-subject-matter-federal-circuit-upholds-patentability-of-drug-dosage-method-claim.html
- ↑ http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2011/06/supreme-court-to-revisit-patentable-subject-matter-eligibility.html