One of the actual benefits of the AIA to inventors and patent holders was the creation of virtual patent marking.\u00a0 Virtual patent marking allows the patent owner to mark its products by posting the patent information on a website, rather than on the product itself.\u00a0 Virtual patent marking\u00a0allows\u00a0the patent owner to quickly add new patents as they are issued thereby preserving the ability to collect damages for infringements before suit is filed.\u00a0 Virtual patent marking also allows patent owners to\u00a0remove patents as they expire or their scope changes, thereby avoding\u00a0liability for\u00a0false patent marking.<\/p>\n
35 U.S.C. 287 requires:<\/p>\n
Patentees, and persons making, offering for sale, or selling within the United States any patented article for or under them, or importing any patented article into the United States, may give notice to the public that the same is patented, either by fixing thereon the word \u201cpatent\u201d or the abbreviation \u201cpat.\u201d, together with the number of the patent, or by fixing thereon the word \u201cpatent\u201d or the abbreviation \u201cpat.\u201d together with an address of a posting on the Internet, accessible to the public without charge for accessing the address, that associates the patented article with the number of the patent, or when, from the character of the article, this can not be done, by fixing to it, or to the package wherein one or more of them is contained, a label containing a like notice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
A patent owner can thus take advantage of this method of marking by putting a simple reference to the website on the product or, if appropriate, the product package:<\/p>\n
Patent: www.company.com\/patents<\/a><\/p>\n
Pat.: www.company.com\/patents<\/a><\/p>\n
The website must “associate” the patented article with the number of the patent.\u00a0 This can be done in a number of ways.\u00a0 Some websites list the products in a table with the corresponding patent numbers.\u00a0 See, for example Tivo’s site: http:\/\/www.tivo.com\/legal\/patents<\/a>\u00a0or Symantec’s site: http:\/\/www.symantec.com\/about\/profile\/policies\/virtual_patent_marking.jsp<\/a>\u00a0or Rapidscan’s site:\u00a0\u00a0Other websites provide an index with links to seprate product pages.\u00a0 See, for example, Abbott’s site: http:\/\/www.abbott.com\/patents\/vision-technologies.htm<\/a>.\u00a0 Still other webpages link to a single or to multiple .pdf listings.\u00a0 See, for example, Bunn’s site:\u00a0http:\/\/www.bunn.com\/pdfs\/misc\/BUNN_Patent_List.pdf<\/a>; Hill-Rom’s site: http:\/\/www2.hill-rom.com\/usa\/PDF\/Patent_20120609.pdf<\/a>, or\u00a0Kimberly Clark’s site:\u00a0http:\/\/www.kimberly-clark.com\/ourcompany\/innovations\/patents.aspx<\/a>.\u00a0 Finally, some websites provide a searchable index.\u00a0 See, for example, St. Jude Medical’s site:\u00a0http:\/\/patent.sjmneuro.com\/Public<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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One of the actual benefits of the AIA to inventors and patent holders was the creation of virtual patent marking.\u00a0 Virtual patent marking allows the patent owner to mark its products by posting the patent information on a website, rather … Continue reading