Dans l’affaire « HIP, Inc., v. Hormel Foods Corp., 2022-1696, — F.4th — (Fed. Cir. May 2, 2023)« , la Cour Fédérale américaine rappelle la définition de co-inventeur:

(1) contributed in some significant manner to the conception of the invention;

(2) made a contribution to the claimed invention that is not insignificant in quality, when that contribution is measured against the dimension of the full invention; and

(3) did more than merely explain to the real inventors well-known concepts and/or the current state of the art. 

Dans Skedco v. Strategic Operations (StOps), la ‘United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’ a confirmé la capacité des demandeurs de revendiquer des éléments non montrés par dessins dans une demande de brevet:

“[I]t is the claims, not the written description, which define the scope of the patent right.� Laitram Corp v. NEC Corp., 163 F.3d 1342 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Patents do not need to include drawings of particular embodiments in order to claim them. See CCS Fitness, Inc. v. Brunswick Corp., 288 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2002). For this reason, a claim is not limited to inventions looking like those in the drawings. MBO Labs., Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., 474 F.3d 1323, 1333 (Fed. Cir. 2007). This guidance is especially apt here because the patent refers to the drawings to which StOps points as “exemplary embodiment[s].�