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“Under this view, the patentee could actually benefit from having a patent issue after its expiration date because the patent’s provisional-rights term would extend beyond the patent’s twenty-year term.” – Federal Circuit

“按此逻辑，专利权人甚至能从过期专利中获益——因其临时权利期限可突破专利20年有效期"。- 联邦巡回法院

The U.S Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential opinion clarifying that provisional rights in a patent do not apply when a patent would issue after its expiration date. Judge Chen authored the decision.

美国联邦巡回上诉法院（CAFC）今日发布先例性判决，明确专利到期后授权不产生临时权利。本案由陈法官主笔，裁定专利权人Donald Forest针对其触屏技术专利申请（第15/391,116号）的上诉无效。

The appeal stems from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) decision affirming in part an examiner’s rejection of certain claims of Donald Forest’s U.S. Patent Application No. 15/391,116 ’116 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 and nonstatutory double patenting. The CAFC described the case at hand as “atypical” because Forest submitted the ‘116 application, titled “Apparatus for Selecting from a Touch Screen,” to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on December 27, 2016—one year after the application to which Forest’s application claims priority would expire. The ‘116 application claims priority to an application filed on March 27, 1995.

上诉源于专利审判和上诉委员会（PTAB）的裁决，该裁决部分维持了审查员根据《美国法典》第35编第103条和非法定重复授权驳回Donald Forest的第15/391,116号美国专利申请的某些权利要求的决定。CAFC将本案描述为 “非常规 ”案件，因为Forest于2016年12月27日向美国专利商标局（USPTO）提交了题为 “Apparatus for Selecting from a Touch Screen ”的'116号申请--这比Forest的申请所要求的优先权到期晚了一年。116号申请要求1995年3月27日提交的申请的优先权。

Forest did not dispute this but claimed he would still acquire provisional rights in the patent were it to issue, while the USPTO argued Forest had no personal stake in the appeal “because he cannot be granted any enforceable rights by a patent grant with zero term,” according to the CAFC opinion.

根据 CAFC 的意见，“因为零期限的专利授权不能赋予他任何可执行的权利”。

Forest argued that patentees are always entitled to provisional rights, regardless of when the patent issues “because provisional rights run from the date of publication to patent issuance,” and that the 20 year term under 35 U.S.C. § 154(a)(2) “has no bearing on the provisional-rights term,” noted the CAFC. But the court disagreed and explained the implications of adopting such a view:

Forest辩称，专利权人始终有权获得临时权利，无论专利何时颁发，“因为临时权利从公布之日起一直持续到专利颁发”，而且《美国法典》第35编第154(a)(2)条规定的20年期限 “与临时权利期限无关”，CAFC指出。但法院不同意这种观点，并解释了采用这种观点的影响：

“Under this view, the patentee could actually benefit from having a patent issue after its expiration date because the patent’s provisional-rights term would extend beyond the patent’s twenty-year term. Indeed, if we were to adopt Mr. Forest’s understanding of the statute, nothing in section 154 would stop him from receiving an expired patent with provisional rights while still pursuing another continuation application to gain a second round of provisional rights covering a subsequent time period through a later, second expired patent.”

“根据这种观点，专利权人实际上可以从专利到期日之后颁发的专利中获益，因为专利的临时权利期限将超过专利的二十年期限。事实上，如果我们采纳 Forest 先生对法规的理解，那么第 154 条中的任何规定都无法阻止他在获得一项已过期的临时权利专利的同时，继续申请另一项延续专利，以通过后来的第二项已过期专利获得涵盖后续时间段的第二轮临时权利。

The CAFC then went on to address whether, under the statute, a patent includes the grant of provisional rights when the patent would issue after its expiration date, ultimately answering definitively that it does not.

CAFC接着讨论了根据法规，当专利将在到期日之后颁发时，专利是否包括授予临时权利，最终明确回答不包括。

In part this is due to the dictionary definition of “provisional,” said the CAFC, explaining that provisional rights “are temporary, placeholder rights existing for only an interim period”—i.e., “until some other right comes into effect and replaces them.” Provisional rights therefore necessarily precede exclusionary rights and “do not exist simply in a vacuum,” said the opinion.

部分原因在于字典中对 “临时 ”的定义，CAFC 解释说，临时权利 “是临时性的、占位性的权利，只存在于过渡时期”--即 “直到其他权利生效并取而代之”。因此，临时权利必然先于排除性权利，而且 “并不只是存在于真空中”。

Forest’s only counterargument was that the statute’s text is clear and must be given its plain meaning, but the CAFC said this reading “engages in an overly narrow statutory analysis.” The statutory phrases in question must be read in context, said the court, and when one does so, the statute clearly “dictates that provisional rights must be granted with and precede the grant of exclusionary rights.”

森林公司唯一的反驳理由是，法律条文的意思很清楚，必须按照其明确的含义来理解，但 CAFC 认为这种理解 “进行了过于狭隘的法律分析”。法院说，必须结合上下文来理解相关的法律用语，如果这样做，法律就会明确 “规定临时权利必须与排除性权利同时授予，并且必须先于排除性权利授予”。

The CAFC further rejected Forest’s contention that provisional rights are an exception to the statutory 20-year term of a patent, noting that such a “fundamentally surprising” interpretation of the statute would undoubtedly have been addressed by Congress, yet it was not. The CAFC thus dismissed Forest’s appeal.

联邦上诉法院进一步驳回了森林公司关于临时权利是专利法定20年期限的例外的论点，指出国会无疑会对这种 “从根本上令人吃惊 ”的法规解释做出规定，但国会却没有这样做。因此，联邦上诉法院驳回了森林公司的上诉。