Elite Pharmaceuticals Inc (ELTP)

[tangerine]

Elite's rejection on 12/640,344 finally posted on USPTO.

In my opinion this is a slam dunk. Again, I am not a patent attorney but this one is pretty easy

First it is rejected for non-statutory double patenting.

Sounds scary right? Its pretty funny and a non issue.

It is because of Elite's recent patent approval. They can not double patent their own tech and start a new clock. Seems what inventors used to be able to do was extend the timelines on their patents by filing more patents just slightly changing them. This is not allowed anymore.

"Today, a non-statutory double patenting rejection is almost always a non-issue. The proper response is simply to file a terminal disclaimer, disclaiming the term that extends past the life of the patent to which the rejection was directed. There are two warnings here. First, be sure to use the exact language of the terminal disclaimer provided in the MPEP. Failure to do so may well result in a defective disclaimer. Second, failure to file a terminal disclaimer is not correctable during litigation after the patent issues. Thus, even if the examiner does not issue a double patenting rejection, it might be a very good idea to file a terminal disclaimer anyway with respect to very close claims in an issued patent. "

http://fishiplaw.com/strategic-patenting/chapter-11---responding-to-office-actions_18.html

The second set of rejections is over obviousness which is pretty much the same exact wording from the previous rejections on the approved patent. same 12-24 hours, 30-50% by weight issues. Elite will use the same argument of the uniqueness over the claimed range of the NE30. I mean it is almost exactly the same wording and might be identical if I sat them side by side

Elite will need to revise the claims like before to 42-50%, submit the doc for the double patenting and that should be it.

If someone can post the doc on google docs or something I can copy and paste and explain it in detail tomorrow but really you can can search my old posts for obviousness and just copy/paste them. It looks to me to be the exact same claimed range issue based on the claim language which was changed in the approved claim but not yet changed on this one.