Friday 10 August 2012

What Is The Significance Of A File Wrapper

By Muriel Noel


Inventors go through a time consuming and onerous patenting regime to protect ownership rights to their discovery. Their application filing is examined by a technically skilled examiner at the patent office. After the examination concludes with a successful application, the documentary record is compiled together in a file wrapper folder.

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 information is available to the public and can be retrieved an examined by anyone. Since 2003, all wrappers are electronically stored. Those granted prior to this date are maintained in hard-copy form for retrieval by interested parties. Only the information contained in this documentary record can be used to determine the scope and nature of the invention.

A file wrapper estoppels is a legal doctrine that arises out of this frame of reference. It prevents any expansion of a claim after the fact. Scope is restricted to what has already been recorded. Whether this restriction applies to claims limited by need to conform to rules for patentable works is a matter that is open to debate. It is believed estoppel should be properly applicable only when a claim is constrained by 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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