Thursday, July 1, 2010

BPAI holds that referring to standard does not make claim indefinite

Takeaway: The BPAI has held in a number of cases that a claim is not rendered indefinite because it refers to a standard (e.g., the IEEE 802.14 standard, commonly known as "WiFi"). In some of these cases, the BPAI also said that the claim was to be interpreted according to the standard in effect at the time of filing.

Details: I found four different cases where an Examiner rejected a claim as indefinite for reciting a standard. In each case, the Examiner's rationale was simply that the claim was indefinite because the standard is subject to change over time. In all four cases, the Board reversed the rejection, reasoning that although a standard may change over time, a particular version of that standard was in existence on the application's filing date, so the claim was not indefinite. (Ex parte McClary, claim recited "ARINC 615 protocol"; Ex parte Ly, claim recited copper "designated by reference used in French standard NF A 51050"; Ex parte Smith, claim referred to a color change "in CIELAB value b*", where CIELAB refers to a color model incorporated into an industry standard; Ex parte Fiala, claim referred to polyethylene selected per a particular ASTM materials standard).

In Ex parte Matsumara (1996 WL 1771396, Appeal No. 94-2397), the Board overturned the indefiniteness rejection for the same reason, and further noted that: "[t]he fact that the terms cover every video standard of NTSC for video data and video signals means the terms are broad. ... The Examiner had confused breadth with indefiniteness."

The Board discussed (in dicta) the effect that referring to a standard has on claim construction in Ex parte Ly

Even if the common definition of that term should change over time, the ordinary meaning of the term as it would have been understood by one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention controls. In the same way, should the French standard of claims 5 and 17 change over time, the scope of the claims remains tied to the standard in effect at the time the application was filed. By referencing the type of copper in French Standard NF A 51-050 in the claims, the claims incorporate that standard as it existed on the effective filing date.

My two cents: Though I can understand the BPAI's reasoning, I was bothered by the BPAI's statement that claim scope is tied to the standard in effect at the time of filing. Does that mean a claim that recites "wherein the LAN interface is an 802.14 interface" won't cover future versions of WiFi? If so, isn't the claim almost worthless in practice, since it's by the time the patent issues, the WiFi standard will have evolved?

How do you interpret a claim that recites "the IP protocol"? IPv6 was originally defined back in 1998, yet as of 2008, 98% of the world's networking equipment still used IPv4. So, in an application filed in 2000, does a claim reciting "the IP protocol" refer to IPv4, IPv6, or both? Or is indefinite because two versions of the standard coexisted?

2 comments:

  1. > Does that mean a claim that recites "wherein the LAN interface is an 802.14 interface" won't cover future versions of WiFi? If so, isn't the claim almost worthless in practice, since it's by the time the patent issues, the WiFi standard will have evolved?

    No, I don't think the claim becomes worthless, but if the new/changed elements of the standard have a substantive effect on the claimed invention then the enforcement of the claim might depend on the doctrine of equivalents.

    What the ruling says is that the contents of the standard in effect at that time is included by reference and, like anything else in a patent that is included by reference, you should read the patent as if the words of the standard were actually in the document. Future changes have no effect on the document.

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  2. Bruce, thanks for you insight. I'm a big fan of your "Intellectual Properly Directions" blog.

    >if the new/changed elements of the standard
    >have a substantive effect on the claimed
    >invention then the enforcement of the claim
    >might depend on the doctrine of equivalents.

    Yeah, after thinking about it a bit more, I also came to the conclusion that DoE is implicated.

    I think that if the standard has changed since the time of filing, you lose on literal infringement, and DoE is automatically implicated. Also think that the outcome of the DoE determination depends on what's changed in the standard.

    Haven't quite figured out what this really means, though.

    Suppose the claim says:
    a LAN interface;
    a processor configured by instructions to receive packets from the LAN interface and to [novel processing of packets],
    wherein the LAN interface is an 802.14 interface.

    Seems like that claim *should* be infringed under DoE by a newer version of the standard. Sure, there are lots of changes between the old standard and the new, but they're unrelated to the patentable feature.

    OTOH, suppose the claim says:
    a LAN interface operable to perform collision avoidance by [more details about collision avoidance];
    a processor configured by instructions to receive packets from the LAN interface and to process the packets,
    wherein the LAN interface is an 802.14 interface.

    Seems like that claim *should not* be infringed under DoE by a newer version of the standard which changes how 802.14 performs collision avoidance.

    Just thinking out loud here. Like I said, haven't really thought this through.

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