The Federal Circuit recently found a litigant guilty of
inequitable conduct in circumstances that should give pause to
inventors who want to share their ideas for the purpose of
experimentation before making a patent application. The case,
GC CleanTech Corp. v. Adkins Energy, LLC, (appeal no.
2016-2231, 2017-1838 (Fed. Cir., March 2, 2020), provides important
guidance on the distinction between shopping ideas and refining
them, which inventors and patent counsel alike should heed.
The statistics regarding patent examination are understood, with
a baseline amount of time per application varying between 16.6
hours and 27.7 hours depending on the technology complexity.
See generally, Marco, Alan C. and Toole, Andrew A. and
Miller, Richard and Frumkin, Jesse, USPTO Patent Prosecution
and Examiner Performance Appraisal (June 1, 2017). Attorneys
know this, of course, and they know that the U.S. Patent &
Trademark office (USPTO) received an average of 590,000 utility
patent
