Patent Expiring Prior to Issue Date Has No Enforceable Term​

The magistrate judge recommended granting defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's patent infringement claims for one patent-in-suit because the patent expired before it issued. "A patent’s term begins on the date of issuance and ends twenty years after the filing date of the earliest filed non-provisional application to which it claims priority. . . . [One patent-in-suit] expired on June 8, 2015 -- more than a month before it issued on July 28, 2015 -- and therefore it had no enforceable term. . . . If the statute were construed as [plaintiff] proposes, i.e., so that an expired-when-issued patent had some indefinite term extension past the ordinary twenty-year mark to be determined by the Court, then the public would have no notice as to when such patent term would end. Clearly, that cannot be the case."

Bartonfalls LLC v. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., 2-16-cv-01130 (TXED March 15, 2017, Order) (Payne, MJ)