Background of the invention

A description or explanation of the background of the invention, N, may also be provided by the inventor. This background section discusses previous developments of inventors working in the same area of technology and may also Hst pubHcations or patents that have discussed these developments and predate the filing date of the patent appUcation. The background section may also point to deficiencies in the prior developments that the inventor intends to overcome. 

To complement the discussion of problems and prior pubHcation in the background of the invention, N, the inventor may generally provide a summary of the invention disclosed in the instant patent. The summary of the invention, O, should provide an explanation of the invention in the broadest and simplest terms and should also discuss how the invention disclosed in the patent solves problems remaining in prior work in this area of technology. 

The bulk of the patent specification is the disclosure, the text and illustrations that describe the claimed invention in detail and explain how the claimed invention differs from the prior art. Modem patent disclosures contain a summary of the claimed invention, a description of the background of the invention, a general description of the way in which the invention is made and used, specific examples, and, where appHcable, drawings of the invention in general or specific embodiments. The technical information provided in a patent specification may be used without infringing the patent only practicing the invention defined in the claims within the term and territory of the patent grant is forbidden. Because much of the information in patent specifications is never pubHshed in refereed journals or other nonpatent media, patent disclosures are an invaluable part of the technical Hterature. 

For another well written, short introduction to the study of SNPs and a rare example of a patent actually teaching rather than obscuring something, see the Background of the Invention section of Venter, et al. Polymorphisms in known genes associated with human disease, methods of detection and uses thereof, US 6812339 (November 2, 2004). This and other patents are readily available via a website search of www.uspto. gov or Google Patents. 

In US patents and application, the front page is sometimes followed by drawings (figures, graphs, etc.), which instead are found later on in PCX applications. After that, a short field of the invention section which may not be terribly different from the abstract can sometimes be found. Both US PTO and PCX publications will include a background of the invention section. 

Background of the Invention. Although the key intermediate required to produce fluazifop butyl, ch1orf1uazuron and fluazinam is 2,5-CTF (8), some other (chloro-)tfm-pyridines occur as byproducts in the manufacturing process (simultaneous vapor-phase chlorination and fluorination of 3-picoline) developed by ISK, as shown in Figure 3. 2,3-CTF and 2,6,3-DCTF can be reduced to TF, which can then be re-fed to the reaction. However, since direct separation and effective application of the byproducts is undoubtedly preferable with respect to cost performance, we sought an appropriate agrochemical mother-skeleton to which such 3-tfm-pyridine intermediates can be introduced. 

One of these methods is the split-mix procedure, originally called portioning-mixing method, invented by Furka et al. [1-3]. This method was originally developed to enable the user to prepare millions of new peptides, but, later, was successfully used to synthesize organic libraries, too. The method is an embodiment of the combinatorial principle and the combinatorial thinking , which constitutes the theoretical background of the method and proved to be so fruitful in other areas, too. 

Patent applications have fixed formats that often vary between patent offices but nevertheless require a similar information submission a background, summary, details of invention, and so on. The patent application must be comprehensive to demonstrate novelty and the inventive step in light of prior art it should be understood that the purpose is not to fool the patent examiner into allowance, but to protect the invention from competitors who will challenge it, should it be worth anything. A full disclosure is required to keep the infringers out, to decrease the chance of their success in knocking out a patent. Additional statements are included defining the features of the invention for use as a basis for specific... 

Against this factual background of the threepronged test and secondary considerations (if any), the obviousness or nonobviousness of the invention is determined. The decision maker must step back in time and determine whether a person of ordinary skill would have found the invention as a whole obvious at the time the invention was made. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has offered the following guidelines for this determination ... 

Fed. Reg. 20,195,20,222 (1995). Of course, earned to the extreme, a "contributor" could be anyone who helped develop the background area of the invention. It seems very unlikely that Congress intended all such "contributors" to be named on a provisional application. The issue becomes where to draw the line in naming inventors. 

Patents usually follow a standard format. They contain a Background or Prior Art section that describes old processes noting their limitations and problems, mi Invention section tliat describes the "new process often including examples of reduciion-io-practice, and the Claims section that defines quantitatively the conditions and limits of the Invention. Tlie information in a patent is reviewed by patent examiners who frequently require that the limits of the claims be revised before the patent is issued. Even witli Uiis review process the limits of the claims are frequently much wider than covered in the Examples section. Not all patents have been reduced to practice, and we have included several of these which we refer to as thought patents. Some of the patents can work as described even though no data are presented some cannot work even though data are pre.sented. 

A patent application typically contains a background statement which gives the field of the invention and explains the state of the art prior to the invention and the need for the invention. It then gives a summary of the invention followed by a detailed description. There is typically a section that... 

There are no definitive answers to these questions. However, the case law does provide some guidance on when a 271(e)(1) exemption applies. The exemption does not apply when the infringer is actually selling product with FDA approval. However, use of the invention prior to FDA approval can seriously impair the competitive advantage of the patents. To understand the law let s first review its background. 

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