Continuation Drafter
Tier A: the term and double-patenting spine
5 authorities. Each is quoted from its primary source and checked against a cached copy.
Allergan protects less than practitioners hoped
The USPTO's own reviewing panel read Allergan v. MSN narrowly, reinstated the double-patenting rejections its Board had reversed, and told examiners the Allergan exception will rarely if ever come up during original examination.
The term the Office gave you can be the term that kills the claim
The Federal Circuit held that patent term adjustment is added before the double-patenting comparison is run, so a continuation that earned extra term for Office delay can be invalidated by an earlier-expiring relative it is obvious over.
A parent cannot be invalidated by its own children
The Federal Circuit reversed a district court that had read In re Cellect to invalidate the first patent in a family over two of its own later-filed continuations, holding that the first-filed, first-issued patent sets the family's maximum period of exclusivity.
Extension survives, adjustment does not
The Federal Circuit held that obviousness-type double patenting does not cut off a validly obtained patent term extension under Section 156, so long as the patent was already valid at its pre-extension expiration date.
The cure is permanent, and it was nearly made more expensive
A terminal disclaimer ties a patent's expiration and its ownership to another patent, it cannot be undone once the patent issues, and the 2024 rule that would have also forfeited enforceability whenever the other patent lost a claim to prior art was withdrawn in December 2024 and never took effect.