Bally Manufacturing Corp. v. Sidney A. Diamond, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks

PHILLIPS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-appellant Bally Manufacturing Corp. filed this suit to enjoin the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) from examining Bally’s reissue patent application until the PTO promulgates rules to govern its consideration of unpublished evidence of prior invention by another. The district court dismissed on the grounds Bally had not exhausted its administrative remedies and had failed to establish that examining the reissue application under present PTO rules would subject Bally to irreparable harm. We affirm.

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Bally manufactures pinball machines and electronic…