Law Commons^™

The Ontological Function Of The Patent Document, Andrew Chin

Faculty Publications

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 …