Immersion Corp. v. HTC Corp.

In January, 2000, Immersion filed an application (846 patent) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, disclosing a mechanism for providing haptic feedback to electronic device users. Immersion filed an International Application that published as WO 109 in July, 2001. The two written descriptions are materially identical. The WO 109 publication invalidates claims to its disclosed subject matter unless those claims were entitled to an effective filing date before July 26, 2002, 35 U.S.C. 102(b). On August 6, 2002, the day the 846 patent issued, Immersion filed the application for the 875 patent, which shared its description. Immersion asserted a January 2000 effective filing date (846 patent’s application date), citing 35 U.S.C. 120, under which, “[a]n application for patent for an invention disclosed adequately … in an application previously filed ... shall have the same effect, as to such invention, as though filed on the date of the prior application, if filed before the patenting or abandonment of or termination of proceedings on the first application or on an application similarly entitled to the benefit of the filing date of the first application.” This timing benefit shrinks the universe of “prior” art for determining validity. The district court held that the 875 application was not “filed before the patenting” of the 846 application because they were filed on the same day, so that the 875 patent’s filing date was August 6, 2002, rendering the patent invalid because the WO 109 publication was published more than one year earlier. The Federal Circuit reversed: an application may be “filed before the patenting” of the earlier application when both legal acts, filing and patenting, occur on the same day. View "Immersion Corp. v. HTC Corp." on Justia Law