The Uses Of A File Wrapper - references and education directory

To protect their right of ownership in their creation, inventors have to patent their discoveries. To do this they have to go through a cumbersome application process with the appropriate government body. The complete record of the material that gets collected is termed a file wrapper.

The patenting procedure also goes by the description of patent prosecution. This description is a reference to the examination inventors must pass. The U. S. Patent and Trademark Office oversees patents in the United States.

Once a patent has been awarded, an inventor can realize the latent money making capacity of the discovery. Any infringement may thereafter be rigorously litigated. Prosecution history is an indispensable tool and is used rigorously by both sides in any litigation over the infringement of a patented invention.

This record is publicly accessible so both sides in a dispute will rely heavily on the material it contains. The USPTO has been digitally storing the application records since 2003. These can be retrieved online. However earlier patents are available in paper copy from. The reason this material is so crucial because only what it contains may be used to determine the nature of the claim and its scope.

The legal doctrine of file wrapper estoppel has been established which prevents inventors from broadening their claims beyond what is recognized in the official documentation. It binds holders of patents to claims made during the application procedure. They are estopped or prevented from claiming what is not revealed in the paperwork. There is some dispute whether this bar applies when a claim is narrowed for definition to meet the statutory requirements for patentability rather than to distinguish it from prior art.

In a case where a denial is appealed, estoppel may come into play. Focus will be on what is revealed by the file wrapper in its entirety. Any trade secrets revealed to examiners during examination will not be made publicly available.

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Source: http://referencesandeducation.info/2012/12/the-uses-of-a-file-wrapper/

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