{"id":525,"date":"2026-03-04T12:41:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T16:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/?p=525"},"modified":"2026-03-04T12:41:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T16:41:34","slug":"not-so-fast-my-friend-explicit-apprehension-of-prior-art-reference-disclosure-is-insufficient-to-support-a-finding-of-inequitable-conduct-on-summary-judgment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/2026\/03\/04\/not-so-fast-my-friend-explicit-apprehension-of-prior-art-reference-disclosure-is-insufficient-to-support-a-finding-of-inequitable-conduct-on-summary-judgment\/","title":{"rendered":"Not So Fast, My Friend: Explicit Apprehension of    Prior Art Reference Disclosure Is Insufficient to Support a Finding of Inequitable Conduct on Summary Judgment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/thomasjkowalski.html\">Thomas J. Kowalski<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/vickignorton.html\">Vicki G. Norton, Ph.D.<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/jarradmgunther.html\">Jarrad M. Gunther<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/brandonachan.html\">Brandon A. Chan, Ph.D.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In defending against allegations of patent infringement, there are numerous avenues to invalidating an asserted patent or rendering it unenforceable. Invalidity contentions can include asserting that the claims are anticipated or rendered obvious over the prior art such that the patent should never have issued, or that the claims are indefinite, insufficiently described or not enabled by the specification. Inequitable conduct\u2014asserting that the applicant breached its duty of candor and good faith before the United States Patent and Trademark Office with a specific intent to deceive through the omission of material information\u2014may be used to render the asserted patent or family of patents unenforceable. Unlike invalidity contentions, which are analyzed and proven on a claim-by-claim basis, a finding of inequitable conduct can render the underlying patent or family of related patents unenforceable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/alerts\/explicit_apprehension_prior_art_reference_disclosure_does_not_support_finding_inequitable_0326.html\">Read the full&nbsp;<em>Alert<\/em>&nbsp;Duane Morris LLP website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By&nbsp;Thomas J. Kowalski,&nbsp;Vicki G. Norton, Ph.D.,&nbsp;Jarrad M. Gunther&nbsp;and&nbsp;Brandon A. Chan, Ph.D. In defending against allegations of patent infringement, there are numerous avenues to invalidating an asserted patent or rendering it unenforceable. Invalidity contentions can include asserting that the claims are anticipated or rendered obvious over the prior art such that the patent should never have &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/2026\/03\/04\/not-so-fast-my-friend-explicit-apprehension-of-prior-art-reference-disclosure-is-insufficient-to-support-a-finding-of-inequitable-conduct-on-summary-judgment\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Not So Fast, My Friend: Explicit Apprehension of    Prior Art Reference Disclosure Is Insufficient to Support a Finding of Inequitable Conduct on Summary Judgment&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[521],"class_list":["post-525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"authors":[{"term_id":521,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"duanemorris3","display_name":"Duane Morris","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/843ff6e7a8fe5fc92109b47a45f34b6cf0ea499e6e788db23456c838b0ae6747?s=96&d=blank&r=g","author_category":"1","last_name":"Sullivan","first_name":"Margaret","job_title":"","user_url":"http:\/\/www.duanemorris.com","description":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\">Visit the Duane Morris website.<\/a>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lifescienceslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}