The practice of serially filing continuation applications through a patent’s lifetime has come under increased pressure in recent years from newly implemented continuing application fees to expanded case law on non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting. A somewhat new interpretations of the doctrine of prosecution laches emerging from Sonos, Inc. v. Google, LLC in late 2023, however, that threatened an outright repudiation of the practice late into a patent’s 20-year term. In a post-trial motion, District Court Judge William H. Alsup set aside a $32.5M jury verdict that Google infringed Sono’s 10,469,966 and 10,848,885 patents,…
