“McKesson”, The Ghost Of New Rules Past?

* Ms. Pan is a partner in the EM practice group of Sughrue Mion, PLLC in Washington, DC. The views expressed herein are solely those of the author.

On October 31, 2007, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia preliminarily enjoined implementation of the U.S.P.T.O. New Patent Rules package announced on August21, 2007.1 Patent holders and practitioners breathed a collective sigh of relief as the burdens and constraints of the new Rules no longer had an overwhelming immediacy. Among the Rules enjoined was a regulation mandating disclosure of related applications and patents held by a common assignee, having at least one common inventor and whose effective filing dates fell within a prescribed timing window.2 This Rule, if implemented, would have required a wholesale revision of docketing systems of many patent applicants. Despite the injunction of the Rules, the importance of having systematic disclosure of related applications to U.S.P.T.O. Examiners cannot be relegated to the backburner of patent concerns. The reasons for this are twofold. First, though the preliminary injunction of October 31, 2007 specifically voided the U.S.P.T.O.'s ability to put limits on continuation applications, number of claims and RCE requests, the restrictions against the U.S.P.T.O.'s promulgating rules relating to disclosure of related application were not as pronounced.3 Second, and perhaps more importantly, the Federal Circuit's decision of McKesson Information Solutions, Inc. v. Bridge Medical Inc.,4 imposes a duty of disclosure of proceedings in related applications that is even more far-reaching than required by the currently defunct Rules.

Procedural Background Of McKesson

Decided three months in advance of the New Rules announcement, McKesson suggests that merely disclosing related applications may not be sufficient to guard against a finding of inequitable conduct, leading to the unenforceability of a patent. In McKesson, the sole patent being litigated was U.S.P. 4,857,716 (hereafter "'716 patent" issued to Gombrich, Zook and Hendrick). The '716 patent issued from application 205,527 and shared a common parent (Serial 862,278) with the continuation-in-part application that eventually led to issuance of U.S.P. 4,835,372 (hereafter "'372 patent"). Both the '716 patent and the '372 patent were prosecuted by practitioner Schumann before Examiner Trafton and were assigned to CliniCon Inc.5 The '372 patent issued with substantially no prosecution on the merits on December 16, 1988. At that time, the '716 patent was still in active prosecution. Schumann did not disclose the allowance of the '372 patent to the common Examiner Trafton.

A third patent discussed in McKesson was U.S.P. 4,850,009, which issued to Zook and Gombrich based on application Serial 203,549, a continuation of Serial 862,149. The '549 application was filed eight days prior to the continuation application (Serial 205,527) which eventually issued as the '716 patent. Schumann did disclose the existence of the pending '549 application to Examiner Trafton, and prosecuted the '549 application. However, prosecution of the '549 application was before Examiner Lev.

Substantive Background Of McKesson

Substantively, the '716 patent relates to a patient identification system for relating items (such as medications) with patients and ensuring that an identified item corresponds to the identified patient. This is accomplished by physically attaching bar codes to the patient and their medications and providing a patient terminal bar code reader. The patient bar code reader wirelessly communicates with a base station located in a patient's room. This base station communicates with a computer system that processes and stores patient data. Thus, among the patient terminal, the base station and the system computer, the '716 teaches a "three node" communication.6 In order to prevent a patient terminal from communicating with the base station in an adjacent room, the base stations of the '716 patent include a unique identifier, communicating with the patient terminal using "the unique identifier."7

The McKesson decision focused on these two aspects of the communication system 1) the "three node" communication and 2) the "unique identifier" in discussing the prosecution history of the '716 patent.

In reply to an Office Action dated April 6, 1987, the patentee argued for patentability of claims directed to the "three node" communication feature.8 The "unique identifier" feature was recited in a separate dependent limitation as part of the parent '278 application. On December 8, 1987, the Examiner maintained the rejection of the "three node" claim over the combination of Blum and Pejas. However, the Examiner explained that the claim further including the "unique identifier" feature would be allowed if rewritten in independent form. Schumann accepted this offer on June 8, 1988, by abandoning the (parent) '278 application in favor of the '527 application, with an independent claim including the feature of claim 6 (unique identifier feature) in conjunction with the three node communication. Examiner Trafton allowed the claim on February 27, 1989, and the '716 patent issued on August 15, 1989.9

Concurrent with the prosecution of the '716 patent, Examiner Trafton allowed the '372 patent on December 16, 1988, on claims that included the three node communication but did not recite the unique identifier. As discussed above, Schumann did not disclose the (prior) allowance of the '372 patent to Trafton during prosecution of the '716 patent.

Also concurrent with the prosecution of the '716 patent, Schumann prosecuted the '549 application before Examiner Lev. Prior to a first Office Action on the merits, claims of the '549 application included recitations of the three node communication. Examiner Lev rejected these "three node communication" claims over Blum and Pejas on February 26, 1987, about ten months prior to the citation of the same reference combination in the '716 prosecution history by Examiner Trafton. Schumann did not disclose Examiner Lev's rejection over Blum and Pejas in the '549 application to Examiner Trafton in the prosecution of the '716 patent. On August 26, 1987, the patentee amended claims of the '549 application to include features of a "real time" communication and further included dependent claims to describe the three node communication in combination with the unique identifier. On October 23, 1987, 17 days after filing of the Amendment traversing the rejection of the "three node" claim in the '716 patent, Examiner Lev discussed a new reference (Baker) with attorney Schumann. The Examiner issued a formal rejection of the claims including the combination of the three node communication and the unique identifier over the combination of Sunstedt, Blum and Baker on December 1, 1987.

Up until the Office Action citing Baker, Schumann had disclosed references cited in the '549 application in the prosecution of the '716 patent. Thus, the Baker patent was not made of record in the '716 patent. On June 17, 1988, Schumann amended claims in the '549 application to include a self-initiated communication. This amendment was made to distinguish the claims over the rejection over Sunstedt, Blum and Baker, which combination included a "polling" arrangement. The '549 application issued as U.S.P. 4,850,009 on July 18, 1989.

A timeline summary of the prosecution of each of the '716...