The Intellectual Property Strategist

Highlights of the latest intellectual property news from around the country.

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Features

When considering a broadening reissue application, patent owners often confront a recurring issue: Can a limitation added or argued during prosecution of an original patent to gain allowance over prior art later be broadened during reissue? Recent developments in case law at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") suggest a way to permissibly broaden such limitations through reissue and still avoid recapture. We call it reclaiming the ring.

Some recent estimates suggest that by 2007 brand name pharmaceutical companies will lose more than $80 billion in drug sales because of patent term expirations. Patent term expirations, of course, usher the entry of generic drugs into the marketplace. On average, the market share for branded products decreases by 15% to 30% when a first generic version reaches the market, and as much as 75% to 90% when subsequent generics launch. Such significant losses provide incentive to extend patent life and maximize the period of market exclusivity for a patented drug.

Your client International Marketers, Inc. (IMI) owns U.S. and foreign patents for an improved football. IMI wants to license the patent and make direct sales of identical balls around the world, while making its own sales to the U.S. market. However, IMI knows that the price consumers will pay for its football is much higher in the United States than elsewhere. IMI is concerned that footballs sold by it and its licensees to distributors outside the United States might be purchased by third parties and imported back into the United States at a price below what it hopes to charge distributors in the United States.

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Features

Highlights of the latest intellectual property news and cases from around the country.

A prominent court, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, has rendered what may become a prominent opinion in the copyright arena, <i>U.S. v. Martignon</i>, No. 03 Cr. 1287 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 27, 2004). Unfortunately, the analysis in the decision misses the essential point that the issue was not really one of copyright.