reexamination : CAFC Alert

Will the Marine Polymer Expansion of Intervening Rights be Reversed?

| January 30, 2012

A few days ago the CAFC issued a notice that it would review, en banc, last September’s 2-1 panel decision in Marine Polymer v. HemCon, specifically the holding that absolute intervening rights arise where a patentee narrowly construes its claims in reexamination, thereby “effectively amending” those claims, even without an actual amendment of the claims.  See 35 U.S.C. §§ 252 and 307(b).  Such intervening rights, of course, eliminate all damages for the period before the issuance of the reexamination certificate concluding the reexamination.  Until Marine Polymer, only a single trial had found intervening rights derived from argument alone.

There was, however, a dissent by Judge Alan Lourie who did not accept the “amendment in effect” argument.  For him, there is “threshold requirement in §§ 307(b) and 316(b) that intervening rights apply only to amended or new claims.”  Since that threshold requirement was not satisfied, there could be no intervening rights, Judge Lourie argued.


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