Feb 21, 2020

The Federal Circuit, which is the high court for patents, ruled recently that a licensed patent also implies a licensing agreement for continuations of the patent. This is because a continuation includes the underlying patent therein. A continuing or continuation patent application is one in which the applicant wishes to move forward with a different set of claims than those pursued in the original application. The new claims must be wholly supported by the original application. A continuation-in-part patent application is one that includes all of the disclosure of the original patent application, plus some additional information.