“In a patent case, ‘after-arising technology’ is technology that was not invented until after the patent’s filing. Neither this Court nor the Federal Circuit en banc has addressed the disclosure rules for after-arising technology. One line of Federal Circuit case law holds that when a patentee secures a claim construction that ensnares, as infringing, an accused device that features after-arising technology, the patentee risks invalidating its own patent under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a), which requires a patentee to describe and teach the claimed invention. A contradictory line of Federal Circuit decisions, including the decision below, carves out an exception for after-arising technology. This line holds that ‘later-existing state of the art . . . may not be properly considered’ in the validity analysis. After-arising technology, that is, may not ‘reach back and invalidate’ a patent. Yet that proposition conflicts with The Incandescent Lamp Patent, 159 U.S. 465 (1895). Edison’s after-arising bamboo-filament technology exposed the invalidity of Sawyer and Man’s patent for an electric lightbulb.”
“The question presented is: Whether, in a patent-infringement suit, a court may consider after-arising technology to hold that the patent is invalid under § 112(a) of the Patent Act.”
