Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
The Ontological Function Of The Patent Document, Andrew Chin
The Ontological Function Of The Patent Document, Andrew Chin
Andrew Chin
With the passage and impending implementation of the “first-to-file” provisions of the America Invents Act of 2011, the U.S. patent system must rely more than ever before on patent documents for its own ontological commitments concerning the existence of claimed kinds of useful objects and processes. This Article provides a comprehensive description of the previously unrecognized function of the patent document in incurring and securing warrants to these ontological commitments, and the respective roles of legal doctrines and practices in the patent system’s ontological project. Among other contributions, the resulting metaphysical account serves to reconcile competing interpretations of the written …
Gene Probes As Unpatentable Printed Matter, Andrew Chin
Gene Probes As Unpatentable Printed Matter, Andrew Chin
Andrew Chin
In this Article, I argue that the most problematic kind of gene patents — those claiming short DNA molecules used to probe for longer gene sequences — should be held invalid as directed to unpatentable printed matter. This argument, which emerges from recent developments in biotechnology and information technology, is grounded in the printed matter doctrine’s structural role of obviating patentability inquiries directed to inapposite information-management considerations. Where the inventive contribution in a claimed gene probe subsists solely in stored sequence information, these inapposite considerations lead the novelty and nonobviousness analyses to anomalous results that the printed matter doctrine was …
On Abstraction And Equivalence In Software Patent Doctrine: A Reply To Bessen, Meurer And Klemens, Andrew Chin
On Abstraction And Equivalence In Software Patent Doctrine: A Reply To Bessen, Meurer And Klemens, Andrew Chin
Andrew Chin
Recent books by Professors James Bessen and Michael Meurer and by economist Ben Klemens have argued that software warrants technology-specific treatment in patent doctrine. This article argues that the authors' categorical claims about software are unsupported by computer science, and therefore cannot support their sweeping proposals regarding software patents as a matter of law. Such proposals therefore remain subject to empirical examination and critique as policy choices, and are unlikely to be achieved through judicially developed doctrines.