Prosecution Reopened After Pre-Appeal Brief

July, 28th, 2017

Categories: Blog, News Tags: patent, USPTO, whipgroup

WHIPgroup attorneys successfully used the Pre-Appeal Program to advance prosecution of a case directed to a robot control system. The application discusses problems in the prior art where fast robot movements can occur and cause serious injuries to an operator. The claimed invention addresses this by setting a voltage limit on a DC-bus. The application received a Final Office Action rejecting the claims based on multiple references. WHIPgroup attorneys argued that the prior art does not set any limit, but only measures a deviation (e.g., after it has happened) so that it may initiate an alert. In addition, WHIPgroup attorneys argued that the Examiner’s reliance on inherency throughout the Final Office Action was error as a matter of law. A Pre-Appeal panel agreed with WHIPgroup’s arguments and prosecution was reopened without the need for an Appeal Brief or RCE.