Indefiniteness

February 24, 2022
Photograph of a computer user typing on a laptop

Courts Must Consider Patent Examiner’s Interpretation of Claims

The US CAFC ruled that an examiner is a "person of ordinary skill in the art" and is owed an appropriate level of deference.
November 23, 2018

PAB Rejects Application: Ambiguous and Indefinite Claims are Unpatentable

PAB 1453 – The Patent Appeal Board found that Canadian Patent Application No. 2,612,950 for a “system and method for generating real-time indicators in a trading list or portfolio” was obvious, the claims did not define statutory subject matter and were indefinite.
July 3, 2014

US Supreme Court Tightens the Standard for Definiteness of Patent Claims

Nautilus Inc v Biosig Instruments Inc, No 13-369, 572 US ____ (2014) - On the matter of interpreting the meaning of electrodes in a "spaced relationship with each other", the US Supreme Court held that a patent is invalid for indefiniteness if its claims, read in light of the specification and the prosecution history, fail to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention and remanded the case to the Federal Circuit.
October 1, 2013

PAB Declares Patent Invalid on Basis of Obviousness, Lack of Inventiveness, and for Having an Indefinite Scope

Re: Patent Application No. 2,285,834 [CD 1337] Background The Patent application 2,285,834 was filed on October 13, 1999 based on a US priority application no. 09/182,020 filed on […]