Here's What Happened:
Healthier Choices Management Corp is a grocery and vape store chain. Healthier Choices applied to patent its own electronic vaping pipe.
Philip Morris also had a line of electronic vaping pipes.
In an interparty proceeding before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, Philip Morris challenged Healthier Choices' patent. The Board agreed with Philip Morris that eight of the claims in Healthier Choices' patent were void due to "anticipation". Anticipation means a previous patent or publication (called prior art) fully describes or discloses the elements of the claimed invention. Prior art makes the invention ineligible for patent protection because the invention is not new.
Healthier Choices appealed to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Federal Circuit agreed with the Board. The prior art disclosed a heating element fixed in the combustible material reservoir. Healthier Choices argued that the prior art did not disclose how the components were interconnected and how the device operates. The Board pointed out, and the Federal Circuit agreed, that a person of ordinary skill in the "art" of creating vaping pens would have understood the interconnection even if the inventor of the prior art did not disclose how the device operates.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board's decision. Healthier Choices will not get a patent on its electronic vaping pen.
WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS: An invention needs to be new, useful and non-obvious to be eligible for a patent. One missing element means no patent. In this case, the missing element was "new". The interesting nuance is that prior art can leave something off. But if a person with ordinary skills in the art can connect the dots, then anticipation applies.
Cited Authority_:_ Healthier Choices Mgmt. Corp. v. Philip Morris Prods. S.A., No. 2023-1529, 2024 WL 4866805, at *1 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 22, 2024).
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