In re Staats, No. 10-1443 (Fed. Cir. 2012)
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In 1996, Staats applied for a patent titled "Isochronous Channel Having a Linked List of Buffers.” The 600 patent issued in 1999, describing improvements to management of isochronous data transfers, such as transfer of real-time video data from one component to another in a computer system. Within the two-year period, 35 U.S.C. 251, Staats filed a first broadening reissue application. The first reissue patent issued in 2004. While that application was pending, Staats filed a second broadening reissue application in 2004, as a continuation of the first application. While the second application was pending, but almost seven years after the original patent issued, Staats filed a third broadening reissue application in 2006, as a continuation of the second application. During prosecution of the third application, Staats added broadened claims in 2007. The examiner rejected the third application, finding that the new broadened claims were "not related in any way to what was covered in the original broadening reissue." The Board sustained the rejection. The Federal Circuit reversed. The first broadening reissue application was filed within the two-year limit; that is sufficient to satisfy the requirement.
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