By: Mel R. Quintos and Deanne M. Barrow

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) case of In re Richard Alan Haase, decided on October 30, 2013, is an appeal by applicant Richard Haase of a decision of the U.S. PTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (now the Patent Trial and Appeal Board) upholding the Examiner’s final rejection of all claims in a patent application as not patentable over prior art references. The Board found that the claims were anticipated and obvious over the prior art.

The patent application at issue, U.S. Patent Application No. 10/413,849, relates to methods of treating waste water that reduce turbidity using ammonium polymers, including polyacrylamides, with specified molecular weights. Claim 3, one of the claims at issue, requires, in addition to an aluminum polymer, an “effective amount of at least one cationic ammonium polymer” that must include at least one cationic ammonium polymer having a molecular weight of “at least about 5,000,000.” —click here to read more—