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Doctrine of inherency
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In United States patent law, the doctrine of inherency is a vague doctrine which includes contradicting case law. The doctrine revolves around the question of novelty and arises when an inventor tries to obtain a product patent for a product that had been unintentionally invented earlier ("accidental anticipation").
The United States Supreme Court held in Tilghman v. Proctor that where the first, accidental producer was not aware of the product and did not attempt to produce it, the first production did not bar a patent on the subsequent "invention" of the product. 102 U.S. 707 (1880).
Recent case law holds that an inventor cannot obtain a product patent simply by putting the product to new use, even if the new use had not been previously contemplated. However, a recent Federal Circuit trend is to examine whether the previous invention actually benefited the public. If the public does not benefit from the previous product, then there is no inherency.
- Merges/Menell/Lemley, Intellectual Property in the Technology Age, Aspen Publishers 2006
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