In his Note, Threading the Needle: Intermediate-Scope Broadening Reissue Claims and the Recapture Rule, Tony Petro investigates an unsettled area of patent law.  When a patent applicant overly narrows claims during prosecution of the original patent and later seeks to broaden the claims to the limit allowed by the prior art in a reissue application, what is the effect of the "recapture rule" with respect to such broadening? 

The Federal Circuit has not spoken clearly on this subject, although the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences offered guidance in the precedential decision of  Ex parte Eggert: such intermediate-scope broadening reissue claims are permissible for a reissue applicant.  But in recent patent appeal proceedings, panels of the Board have drawn the opposite conclusion, attempting to distinguish Eggert as inconsistent with other Federal Circuit pronouncements.  In this Note, Petro examines the logic employed in recent Board decisions and finds it wanting, concluding that the Eggert rule should stand until the Federal Circuit indicates otherwise.