Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

The Patentability Of Living Microorganisms: Diamond V. Chakrabarty, Daniel H. Foote

Articles

Microbiologists have made great advances in modifying gene structures to create new forms of life. In Diamond v. Chakrabarty, the Supreme Court addressed for the first time the patentability of a living microorganism. In a 5-4 decision that has been condemned as heralding the advent of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the Court held that the living nature of a microorganism is no bar to patenting it.

State Law Of Patent Exploitation, Edward H. Cooper

Articles

The main purpose of the present inquiry is to determine whether second thoughts support or undermine the instinctive supposition that the doctrines surrounding cooperative use of patents should be federal. The original creator of a patented invention is seldom in a position to exploit its commercial potential alone; even if the invention is created by the employee of a vast enterprise, it is almost inevitable that the patent will be assigned to his employer. Patent licensing plays a vitally important role in the development of many inventions. The contract doctrines surrounding such transactions, and various other consensual undertakings relating to …

Patent Law: Secret Use As Affecting Right To A Patent, John B. Waite

Articles

An unusually obvious piece of judicial legislation, of practical importance to the manufacturing world, was promulgated in the case of Macbeth-Evans Glass Co. v. General Electric Co., 246 Fed. 695. The facts were that in 1903 Macbeth had invented a process for making glass. Since that time the plaintiff company, of which Macbeth was president, had been using that process. This use had, however, been "secret". In 1910 an employee of the plaintiff revealed the process to the Jefferson Glass Co., which at once began to use it, but on application of the Macbeth Co. the state court enjoined the …

Limitations Upon The Use, After Sale, Of Patented Articles, John B. Waite

Articles

In the case of Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Co., 37 Sup. Ct. 416, the Supreme Court has just rendered a decision which reverses the much discussed case of Henry v. Dick Co., 224 U. S. 1. The opinion was by a divided court, however, as three of the justices dissented, and Justice McREYNOLDS "concurred in the result" only. It can, therefore, hardly be said to settle the ultimate rule as in contradiction to that followed in Henry v. Dick Co., and discussion of the case is of something more than mere academic value. The facts were that …

The Patentability Of A Principle Of Nature, John B. Waite

Articles

The extent to which courts will go in conceding patentability to a natural law, or principle of nature, is evidenced in the case of Minerals Separation Co. v. Hyde, 37 Sup. Ct. -, decided by the Supreme Court, December 11, 1916. It has always been more or less an axiom of patent law that the discovery of a principle of nature does not entitle the discoverer to a patent for it. The case usually thought of first as authority therefor, is that of Morton v. New York Eye Infirmary, 5 Blatch. 116, 2 Fisher 320. The patentees in that case …

The Patentability Of A Mental Process, John B. Waite

Articles

The fact of possession has been so correlated with the theory of property that it is difficult to dissociate ownership from the possibility of physical possession. One finds that the average lawyer, even though he may defind a right in rem as a right enforcible against any person, is extremely apt, unless after especial thought, to explain that it is enforcible against anyone because it pertains to a thing capable of physical possession and control, a thing that could be actually sequestered, from all other persons. Not at all infrequently the term property has been judicially stripped even of its …

Sarony V. Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co., Henry W. Rogers

Articles

Commenting in the Federal Reporter on this Opinion, Professor Rogers considers at length this case bearing on definitions of copyright and artistic properties. "This was an action at law for the violation of the plaintiff's copyright of a photograph of Oscar Wilde, which the defendant had copied by the process known as chromo-lithography.... A jury was waived, and the case was argued upon questions of law only, which appear in the opinion."

"The contention of the defendant, briefly stated, is this: That there was no constitutional warrant for this act; that a photographer is not an author, and a photograph …