Law Commons^™

The Research Patent, Sean B. Seymore

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The patent system gives courts the discretion to tailor patentability standards flexibly across technologies to provide optimal incentives for innovation. For chemical inventions, the courts deem them unpatentable if the chemical lacks a practical, non-research-based use at the time patent protection is sought. The fear is that an early-stage patent on a research input would confer too much control over yet-unknown uses for the chemical, thereby potentially hindering downstream innovation. Yet, denying patents on research inputs can frustrate patent law's broad goal of protecting and promoting scientific and technological advances.

This Article addresses this problem by proposing a new form …

Symposium: The Disclosure Function Of The Patent System, Sean B. Seymore

Vanderbilt Law Review

A fundamental goal of the patent system is to encourage the dissemination of technical knowledge.' The patent system achieves this goal through a quid pro quo-in exchange for the right to exclude, the inventor must fully disclose the technical details of the invention. As soon as a patent document publishes, there is hope that the public will use the technical details disclosed therein to improve upon the invention, to design around it, or to engage in other innovative activities. So while the patentee maintains the right to exclude others from practicing the invention until the patent expires, the technical information …

Patent Silences, Dan L. Burk

Vanderbilt Law Review

A great deal has been said in recent years about patent disclosure. But to say that there is a disclosure function in the patent system implies that there is non-disclosure functioning in the patent system as well. For some information to be disclosed in a patent, other information must go undisclosed; for some things to be included, other things must be excluded. In this article I review the surprising number of doctrines that allow and encourage patent applicants to remain silent about aspects of their inventions. I find that some silences in patents are inadvertent, while some are deliberate; some …

Symposium: The Disclosure Function Of The Patent System, Sean B. Seymore

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Achieving a robust disclosure from patent applicants is no easy task because it brings to the fore competing goals of the patent system. For example, the law must strike a balance between its interest in early disclosure and the need to transform the patent into a substantive technical document that can itself promote innovation. The law must also strike a delicate balance between the public's interest in disclosure and the inventor's incentive to disclose. A lax disclosure requirement compromises the quid pro quo, meaning that the public might get shortchanged in the so-called patent bargain. But a stringent disclosure requirement …

The Patentability Of Digital "Manufactures" As 3d Printing Expands Into The 4d World, Laura E. Powell

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Technological advances have always been supported by a robust patent system that encourages disclosure of inventions by providing protection to the inventor. Society has benefitted from this system, which has relied on a definition of "manufacture" that has essentially remained unchanged for over 200 years. However, with the advent of digital technologies, and in particular Four-Dimensional Printing, courts have been inconsistent in evaluating the patentability of such inventions. Recent Supreme Court and Federal Circuit decisions have indicated that some software may be eligible for patent protection. This is particularly important for 4D printing wherein the manifestation of the printed product …

The Enablement Pendulum Swings Back, Sean B. Seymore

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Possibly in response to criticisms that the U.S. patent system affords too much legal protection to patent owners, the courts have begun to chip away at patent rights. Curiously enough, the Supreme Court has heard a relatively large number of patent cases over its last three terms, which suggests to several commentators and members of the patent bar that the Court is unhappy with the Federal Circuit's stewardship of the patent system and has, among other things, invited the court to rethink its approach to modulating patent rights. And it appears that the Federal Circuit has accepted the invitation. In …

Strategic Disclosure In The Patent System, Douglas Lichtman, Scott Baker, Kate Kraus

Vanderbilt Law Review

Patent applications are evaluated in light of the prior art. What this means is that patent examiners evaluate a claimed invention by comparing it with what in a rough sense corresponds to the set of ideas and inventions already known to the public. This is done for three reasons. First, the comparison helps to ensure that patents issue only in cases where an inventor has made a non-trivial contribution to the public's store of knowledge. Second, it protects a possible reliance interest on the part of the public since, once an invention is widely known, members of the public might …