Functional language's death knell is exaggerated; despite dicta that appear to narrow scope of infringement, such language remains useful

Article Abstract:

The patent bar may have overreacted to dicta on functional language that have apparently narrowed the scope of literal infringement of functional language either by avoiding functional language entirely when drafting patents in the belief that structural language will receive broader interpretation or by overemphasizing the specific description of the patent's structure in narrowly interpretable functional language. The litigation of the 1980s and '90s may have redefined where the line is drawn for functional language between literal infringement and infringement under the doctrine for equivalents.

Interpretation and construction, Law, Patents, Legal language

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In any tongue, descriptive marks fail; doctrine of foreign equivalents holds that generic word in foreign country is generic here

Article Abstract:

The article discusses the "doctrine of foreign equivalents" which courts and the Patent and Trademark Office have whichh holds that a foreign word that is a generic name for a product in another country can remain generic and unregistrable when used in the US for the same product. Similarly, a foreign word that corresponds to a merely descriptive English word may also be merely descriptive and unregistrable. The 1997 'Otokoyama' sake case interpreting this doctrine is discussed.

Trademarks

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Court offers mixed view of equivalents doctrine; divide in Federal Circuit seems to ignore the court's original purpose: uniform patent laws

Article Abstract:

The split in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit causing it to find support for the Hilton Davis Chemical Co. ruling, which interpreted the doctrine of equivalents, in very different areas of the law. The Federal Circuit was created as a specialized court to hear patent appeals and to harmonize the patent law.

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