37 C.F.R. 1.606, Interference between an application and a patent; subject matter of the interference.

This document contains one section of Chapter 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations. This page was last updated in May, 1998. You may return to the main 37 CFR Index, or to the index for one of the follow parts:

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1.606 Interference between an application and a patent; subject matter of the interference.

Before an interference is declared between an application and an unexpired patent, an examiner must determine that there is interfering subject matter claimed in the application and the patent which is patentable to the applicant subject to a judgment in the interference. The interfering subject matter will be defined by one or more counts. The application must contain, or be amended to contain, at least one claim that is patentable over the prior art and corresponds to each count. The claim in the application need not be, and most often will not be, identical to a claim in the patent. All claims in the application and patent which define the same patentable invention as a count shall be designated to correspond to the count. At the time an interference is initially declared (1.611), a count shall not be narrower in scope than any application claim that is patentable over the prior art and designated to correspond to the count or any patent claim designated to correspond to the count. Any single patent claim designated to correspond to the count will be presumed, subject to a motion under 1.633(c), not to contain separate patentable inventions.

[49 FR 48416, Dec. 12, 1984, added effective Feb. 11, 1985; revised, 60 FR 14488, Mar. 17, 1995, effective Apr. 21, 1995]

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