Immersion Corp. v. HTC Corp.

On January 19, 2000, Immersion Corporation (plaintiff) filed a patent application for a haptic-feedback mechanism. This resulted in a patent (the ‘846 patent) issued on August 6, 2002. Immersion had filed another application containing a written description largely similar to that of the ‘846 patent. That application was published on July 26, 2001. Immersion filed a patent application as a continuation of the original 2000 application on August 6, 2002—the same day as the issuance of the ‘846 patent. The August 6 continuation application resulted in the issuance of a separate patent (the ‘875 patent). In a later patent-infringement action in federal district court, HTC Corporation (defendant) alleged that the ‘875 patent was invalid because the application date was more than one year after the publication of relevant subject matter on July 26, 2001. Had the filing of the application that became the ‘875 patent occurred at least one day earlier, HTC argued, the application would have constituted a continuation of the application that resulted in the ‘846 patent, in which case it would have been entitled to the January 19, 2000, date of the original Immersion patent application. However, because the application that became the ‘875 patent was filed on the same day the ‘846 patent issued, HTC argued that it was not entitled to the original filing date. The court found in favor of HTC. Immersion appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.