September, 23rd, 2019

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

WHIPgroup successfully convinced the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that all outstanding novelty and obviousness rejections asserted against its client’s patent application should be reversed.  The claimed invention relates to a medical instrument with a handling device that allows for releasable mechanical connection with several actuation devices in the instrument.  The Examiner had rejected the independent claim as allegedly being anticipated by a prior patent, and rejected all dependent claims as allegedly being obvious in view of a combination of references.  On appeal, WHIPgroup argued that several claimed features were absent from the prior patent cited by the Examiner.  The PTAB agreed with WHIPgroup’s arguments and reversed the Examiner.  Shortly thereafter, the Examiner allowed all pending claims.