The Prior Art Finder tab provides additional prior art references based on Double Patenting, 102/ 103 US patent prior art references, and Pertinent Patents considered in the prosecution history and post-grant proceedings. The prior art references are drawn from Event History of the Overview tab.
Please note these prior art references may mainly include prior art references of patent granted after 2003.
On the top left corner, there’s a list of Page View features where Printer Version, Select All, Add to Project, Compare, and Export are available to avail themselves of further data uses.
On the page of “First Degree Art”, you can see the total of prior art (backward rejections based on double patenting, § 102 or § 103) and subsequent art (forward rejections also based on double patenting, § 102 or § 103). Take the US7865498 patent for example, out of the 13 First Degree Art references, 8 patents are backward and the other 5 are forward ones.
On the page of Second Degree Art, the patents identified include:
- Backward citations’ backward citations. They are the first degree art’s double patenting citations, § 102 rejections, and § 103 rejections. (Note that § 102 and § 103 rejections, by definition, are limited to the US patent applications);
- Backward citations’ forward citations. They are the forward citations of the first degree art. The first degree art is either the double patenting, or the § 102 rejections, or the § 103 rejections of the forward citations;
- Forward citations’ backward citations. They are the backward citations of the first degree art. The backward citations include the double patenting, the § 102 rejections, or the § 103 rejections.
To further consider which one(s) as the second degree prior art, the application dates of the art are compared with the earliest priority date of the patent at issue. The following diagram exemplifies how it works in a simplistic way.
Using the 498 patent for example, the 69 second degree art references are identified by QI according to the above three definitions.
To read the table with ease, we summarize each column with explanation:
- Applicability. A preliminary evaluation on second degree art for eligibility as prior art of the patent at issue under 35 USC § 102;
- Patent Title of “List View”. It is to facilitate an intuitive evaluation of relevance;
- Legal Basis. This also helps evaluate the relevance of the prior art. Namely, the backward/forward citations of the patent at issue are ranked by their legal basis when they are considered as prior art of the patent at issue or they have the patent at issue considered as their prior art. For example, rejections of the patent at issue under 35 USC § 102 are ranked in advance of citations under § 103; Similarly, second degree prior art references are also ranked by their legal basis when they are considered as prior art of backward and forward citations of the patent at issue, or when they have the backward citations the patent at issue considered as prior art.
Using the US7865498B2 as an example, 69 second degree art references are identified; however, some are “not applicable” due to their application dates later than the earliest priority date of the 498 patent.
In addition to List View, Quality Insights offers Summary View with the first figure and abstract among other important patent information to facilitate a quick evaluation of relevant patents.
On the page of “N Degree Art”, you can expand the citations based on double patenting, § 102 or § 103 rejections to find the next degree citations, namely the forward and backward citations, up to the sixth degree citations. In each degree of citations to be expanded, the maximum number is 20.
Select up to 20 of the certain degree art references manually or click Select Top 20 Patents In List. Click the Confirm button to find the next degree of citations thereof on the right side of screen. They are also listed on the corresponding degree zone on the left-hand side.
Furthermore, you may click “any degree” shown on the left-hand side of screen to review the citation result of the given degree appearing on the right-hand side. You can select any citations again to re-define the new citations result to the next degree.
Please note that the selected citations of a given degree will be cleared if you switch from the N Degree Art page to the First Degree Art page or the Second Degree Art page.