Prolific Inventor Loses Battle Against Patent Office on Appeal

Inventor and patent agent Gilbert Hyatt lost an appeal seeking to overturn a district court ruling that he unreasonably delayed processing patent applications initially sought three decades ago.

The lower court was correct to side with the US Patent and Trademark Office’s argument that rejections of Hyatt’s patent applications were justified under the doctrine of “prosecution laches” due to Hyatt’s unreasonable and unexplainable delays in processing his applications, according to a precedential opinion issued Friday by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

It was the second time Hyatt appealed to the patent-centric court in his lawsuit against ...