I encountered this phrase which said "the Examiner takes Offical Notice that A in the cited invention corresponds to B in the instant invention." when translating. I got the meanings of 'take notice' and 'official notice' from online dictionaries. Also, the 'Official Notice' is a name of the document I was translating.
take notice: pay attention (I'm sorry that there is no link to any site. I couldn't find any page that explains the meaning of 'take notice that' in English, so I got this from pages in my first language. I found some pages that explain the meaning of 'take notice of' though.)
official notice: Official notice means the decision taken by an administrative law judge that any judicially cognizable facts, technical or scientific facts are true when the parties have not presented evidence contrary about it. The administrative law judge before taking such official notice shall issue notice to the parties about the fact on which such official notice is to taken. The administrative law judge shall also state in the notice details about the sources of such facts including any staff memoranda and data. Then the parties will be given an opportunity to contest the facts and material so noticed. A party taking such official notice is required to produce a copy of the material about which the judicial notice is taken. (http://definitions.uslegal.com/o/official-notice%20/)
However, I can't understand the exact meaning of 'to take Official Notice that'. From the explanation of the meaning of 'take notice that,' I got the feeling that it's usually used when you want to warn someone as in e.g., "Take notice that you don't get into trouble." and "Please take notice that your manuscript must be in our hands by January 30." And I think I also understand the usage of I take/took notice that… as in "I took notice that my chat system wasn't working properly." which, from my assumption, means "I realized that…"?
What does it exactly mean when it's used in the form of 'someone takes Official Notice that…'? Does it mean someone officially realized something??
Best Answer
Under US Patent Law, "Official Notice" has the meaning of "understood meaning", which is different from "Common Knowledge".
For the rejection of a patent application, there are rule that any Official Notice needs to be documented here. This can be important since patents are about protecting "unique" ideas.
seems to mean that the Examiner is stating A and B are the same. This is probably for some legal reason and it is not assumed that A being the same as B would be considered common knowledge.
It could be that two slightly different names were used, or A being a written description (cited) and B being an actual model of the invention (instant = this).