The prosecution process sees applicants go back and forth with the examiner in order to attempt to persuade the examiner that there is subject matter that is patentable. This give and take process does have its temporal limits. After the response by the applicant or attorney, the examiner will issue a Second Office Action, which could be made final. After the examiner has rejected claims twice the examiner has the authority to make the rejections final. Final rejection, however, is not so final. There is still an opportunity to amend and make changes, but the amendments and changes must be authorized by the examiner. Final Rejection really signifies the entrance into the end game of a prosecution, whereby virtually anything you want to do requires examiner approval.
After prosecution is over you will either wind up with some claims being allowed, all being rejected or all being allowed. In most situations it is probably safe to say that some claims will be allowed and some rejected. At this point you can make several choices. You can either have the allowed claims issue or file a Request for Continuing Examination (RCE). This RCE will restart prosecution. If you choose to have the allowed claims issue you can choose to file a Continuation or a Continuation in Part, which will allow for you to continue to try and persuade the patent examiner that certain claims are allowable. Both Continuations and Continuations in Part start a new application process from the beginning, as opposed to the RCE which continues forward on the same application. Use of the RCE, however, will prevent the allowed claims from immediately issuing.
Of course, along the way a decision can be made to appeal final rejection by the examiner. Such an appeal goes to the Board of Patent Appeals, and perhaps ultimately to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, or the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. In certain contexts appeals can be the right decision, but they are very difficult. As a general rule most appeals are not successful, which makes appealing a difficult decision unless there has been real, identifiable error, or the Patent Office is holding fast to certain interpretations that would have negative consequences for a series of patent applications.
So what is this patent worth from your perspective? What does approval mean? If approved does every stem cell researcher start using ACTC's cell lines exclusively to cover themselves ethically?
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