In Re Stepan Co.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• “Whether the Board relied on a new ground of rejection is a legal question that we review de novo.” (citations omitted)
• “[I]f the appellant has not had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the Board’s actual basis of rejection, the administrative validity proceedings before the [PTO] should be allowed to continue.”
• “[T]he mere fortuity that Stepan addressed the validity of the Declaration on its own, without the issue being raised by the examiner, does not permit the Board to reject the Declaration as ineffective without designating its decision as a new ground of rejection.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).