Maintaining Even Equitable Patent Rights Requires Effort

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently solidified its 1995 ruling in Ray v. Lehman and rejected the notion that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has a duty to question a patent's ownership when it upheld the USPTO Director's denial of the inventor's request to reinstate his patent after failure to pay the maintenance fee. Burandt v. Dudas, Case No. 07-1504 (Fed. Cir., June 10, 2008) (Newman, J.)

Inventor and plaintiff-appellant Corliss Burandt assigned a patent application to his employer Investment Rarities, Inc. (IRI). IRI thereby became the legal title owner of the subsequently issued patent. Soon thereafter, Burandt attempted to regain legal title to the patent from IRI. IRI, however, rebuffed Burandt. Subsequent negotiations proved unsuccessful, and Burandt abandoned his efforts to wrest legal title to the patent from IRI. Some four years passed, and IRI failed to