Interference No. 105,486 Page 2
1 patent would prompt an order to show cause. Lee v. Dryja, 75 USPQ2d 1799
2 (BPAI 2004). In this case, however, the junior party had a second patent, which
3 taking Office records at face value would not expire until 21 November 2008. In
4 its request, the junior party states that the 5,424,188 patent actually also expired on
5 21 November 2006. A review of the file wrapper for the 5,424,188 patent
6 (application paper 28) confirms the junior party's statement. It is unfortunate that
7 the expiration of the 5,424,188 patent was not brought to the Board's attention
8 sooner since the delay between the expiration date of the patents and today will
9 result in an effective three-month term enhancement for the senior party.
10 At first glance, entry of judgment against the junior party might appear to be
11 moot. Since there is a theoretical possibility of estoppel, however, we have entered
12 judgment for the sake of completeness.
13 Given the advance age of the application, the 08/479,995 application file
14 shall be promptly released to the patent operations for such further action as they
15 may deem appropriate. A copy of this judgment shall be entered in the
16 administrative records of Enzo application 08/479,995 and of Princeton patents
17 4,882,269 and 5,424,188.
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