{"id":5320,"date":"2012-07-27T15:25:54","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T21:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/?p=5320"},"modified":"2012-07-27T15:25:54","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T21:25:54","slug":"thought-for-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/?p=5320","title":{"rendered":"Thought for the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The thought for the day comes from the US Supreme Court decision in\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Aro Mfg. Co., Inc. v. Convertible Top Co.<\/span>, 365 U.S. 336 (1961). \u00a0In that case, the Court explained what an &#8220;invention&#8221; is in the context of 35 U.S.C. Sec. 271. Namely, it is the totality of the elements of the claim. \u00a0You might ask yourself if the Federal Circuit is creating a double-standard with respect to the meaning of &#8220;invention&#8221; under \u00a035 U.S.C. sec. 271 and under 35 U.S.C. sec. 101. \u00a0Moreover, is the court backsliding to a &#8220;gist of the invention&#8221; analysis for section 101 purposes?<\/p>\n<p>Under 35 U.S.C. sec. 271 as explained by <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Aro I<\/span> a patentee must show that an infringer meets\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">all<\/span> the elements of a claim. \u00a0However, under some recent decisions with respect to 35 U.S.C. sec. 101, some might argue that a judge is free to take a more leisurely approach by discounting various claim elements and attempting instead to divine the underlying idea from the patent specification.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Aro I<\/span> stated:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For if anything is settled in the patent law, it is that the combination patent covers only the totality of the elements in the claim, and that no element, separately viewed, is within the grant. See the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Mercoid<\/span> cases, <em>supra<\/em>, 320 U.S. at 320 U. S. 667; 320 U.S. at 320 U. S. 684. [Footnote 10] The basic fallacy in respondent\u2019s position is that it requires the ascribing to one element of the patented combination the status of patented invention in itself. Yet this Court has made it clear in the two Mercoid cases that there is no legally recognizable or protected \u201cessential\u201d element, \u201cgist\u201d or \u201cheart\u201d of the invention in a combination patent. In <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Co.<\/span>, <em>supra<\/em>, the Court said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat result may not be obviated in the present case by calling the combustion stoker switch the \u2018heart of the invention\u2019 or the \u2018advance in the art.\u2019 The patent is for a combination only. Since none of the separate elements of the combination is claimed as the invention, none of them, when dealt with separately, is protected by the patent monopoly.\u201d<br \/>\n320 U.S. at 320 U. S. 667. And in <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Mercoid Corp. v. Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co.<\/span>, <em>supra<\/em>, the Court said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that an unpatented part of a combination patent may distinguish the invention does not draw to it the privileges of a patent. That may be done only in the manner provided by law. However worthy it may be, however essential to the patent, an unpatented part of a combination patent is no more entitled to monopolistic protection than any other unpatented device.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Aro Mfg. Co., Inc. v. Convertible Top Co.<\/span>, 365 U.S. 336, 344-45 (1961).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The thought for the day comes from the US Supreme Court decision in\u00a0Aro Mfg. Co., Inc. v. Convertible Top Co., 365 U.S. 336 (1961). \u00a0In that case, the Court explained what an &#8220;invention&#8221; is in the context of 35 U.S.C. Sec. 271. Namely, it is the totality of the elements of the claim. \u00a0You might [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5320"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5320"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5335,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5320\/revisions\/5335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}