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Full-Text Articles in Law
Who Benefits?: How The Aia Hurt Deceptively Non-Joined Inventors, Jordana Goodman
Who Benefits?: How The Aia Hurt Deceptively Non-Joined Inventors, Jordana Goodman
Faculty Scholarship
Congress enacted the America Invents Act (“AIA”) to bolster economic development, sustain American innovation, and protect American jobs. This pro-business legislation, however, overlooked one actor critical to any successful innovation endeavor: the inventor. The AIA created access barriers, preventing inventors from efficiently and effectively seeking the entire remedy spectrum to which they are entitled. Paul Morinville and others have opined that the new first-to-file system put small inventors out of business, naming the AIA the single worst disaster in the history of the U.S. patent system. Beyond the filing and subject matter changes, the AIA created fundamental access to justice …
Did The America Invents Act Change University Technology Transfer?, Cynthia L. Dahl
Did The America Invents Act Change University Technology Transfer?, Cynthia L. Dahl
All Faculty Scholarship
University technology transfer offices (TTOs) are the gatekeepers to groundbreaking innovations sparked in research laboratories around the U.S. With a business model reliant on patenting and licensing out for commercialization, TTOs were positioned for upheaval when the America Invents Act (AIA) transformed U.S. patent law in 2011. Now almost ten years later, this article examines the AIA’s actual effects on this patent-centric industry. It focuses on the five key areas of most interest to TTOs: i) first to file priority; ii) broadening of the universe of prior art; iii) carve-out to the prior commercial use defense; iv) micro-entity fees; and …
Disguised Patent Policymaking, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Disguised Patent Policymaking, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Faculty Scholarship
Patent Office power has grown immensely in this decade, and the agency is wielding its power in predictably troubling ways. Like other agencies, it injects politics into its decisions while relying on technocratic justifications. It also reads grants of authority expansively to aggrandize its power, especially to the detriment of judicial checks on agency action. However, this story of Patent Office ascendancy differs from that of other agencies in two important respects. One is that the U.S. patent system still remains primarily a means for allocating property rights, not a comprehensive regime of industrial regulation. Thus, the Patent Office cannot …
Renewed Efficiency In Administrative Patent Revocation, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Renewed Efficiency In Administrative Patent Revocation, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Faculty Scholarship
Administrative patent revocation in the U.S. is poised to enter a new period of efficiency, though ironically it will be an efficiency that the America Invents Act originally put in place. The Court’s recent approval of the constitutionality of Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("PTAB") proceedings was blunted by the Court’s accompanying rejection of partial institution. This Patent Office practice of accepting and denying validity review petitions piecemeal had been a key part of the agency’s procedural structure from the start. As a result, the Court’s decision in SAS Institute v. Iancu to require a binary choice — either fully …
The Porous Court-Agency Border In Patent Law, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
The Porous Court-Agency Border In Patent Law, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Faculty Scholarship
The progression toward reevaluating patent validity in the administrative, rather than judicial, setting became overtly substitutionary in the America Invents Act. No longer content to encourage court litigants to rely on Patent Office expertise for faster, cheaper, and more accurate validity decisions, Congress in the AIA took steps to force a choice. The result is an emergent border between court and agency power in the U.S. patent system. By design, the border is not absolute. Concurrent activity in both settings over the same dispute remains possible. What is troubling is the systematic weakening of this border by Patent Office encroachments …
When Can The Patent Office Intervene In Its Own Cases?, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
When Can The Patent Office Intervene In Its Own Cases?, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Faculty Scholarship
The rise of administrative patent validity review since the America Invents Act has rested on an enormous expansion of Patent Office authority. A relatively little-known aspect of that authority is the agency's statutory ability to intervene in Federal Circuit appeals from adversarial proceedings in its own Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The Patent Office has exercised this intervenor authority frequently and with specific apparent policy objectives, including where one of the adverse parties did not participate in the appeal. Moreover, until recently, there has been no constitutional inquiry into the Article III standing that the Patent Office must establish in …
Patenting Frankenstein's Monster: Exploring The Patentability Of Artificial Organ Systems And Methodologies, Jordana Goodman
Patenting Frankenstein's Monster: Exploring The Patentability Of Artificial Organ Systems And Methodologies, Jordana Goodman
Faculty Scholarship
The conception of Frankenstein’s monster bridges the ever-narrowing divide between man and machine. Long before Congress codified Section 33(a) of the America Invents Act (“AIA”), Mary Shelley’s vague description of the monster’s creation has left people wondering: what defines a human organism? Through an analysis of patent law and scientific progress in the development of artificial organ systems, this paper explores the boundaries of patentable subject matter in the United States and attempts to clarify Congress’s determination that “no patent may issue on a claim directed to or encompassing a human organism.” Though patent law should incentivize development of artificial …
Strategic Decision Making In Dual Ptab And District Court Proceedings, Saurabh Vishnubhakat, Arti K. Rai, Jay P. Kesan
Strategic Decision Making In Dual Ptab And District Court Proceedings, Saurabh Vishnubhakat, Arti K. Rai, Jay P. Kesan
Faculty Scholarship
The post-grant review proceedings set up at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent and Trial Appeal Board by the America Invents Act of 2011 have transformed the relationship between Article III patent litigation and the administrative state. Not surprisingly, such dramatic change has itself yielded additional litigation possibilities: Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee, a case addressing divergence between the manner in which the PTAB and Article III courts construe patent claims, will soon be decided at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Of the three major new PTAB proceedings, two have proven to be popular as well as controversial: inter partes …
The Youngest Patent Validity Proceeding: Evaluating Post-Grant Review, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
The Youngest Patent Validity Proceeding: Evaluating Post-Grant Review, Saurabh Vishnubhakat
Faculty Scholarship
Of the three major ex post patent validity challenge mechanisms that the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act put into place, the third is beginning to show signs of use. Post-grant review is an administrative proceeding of remarkable breadth as compared both to inter partes review and to the transition program for covered business method patents. Thus far, however, patent challengers have made very limited use of post-grant reviews: in the nearly three years since the procedure became available, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has received only about two dozen petitions for post-grant review. By contrast, the number of …
The Changing Life Science Patent Landscape, Arti K. Rai, Jacob S. Sherkow
The Changing Life Science Patent Landscape, Arti K. Rai, Jacob S. Sherkow
Articles & Chapters
Over the past two decades, patent law in the life sciences has been buffeted by numerous controversies. With courts, legislatures and patent offices all responding, one could be forgiven for believing that the main constant has been change. In the following article, we look back at some of the major events in life science intellectual property (IP) law and business practice over the past 20 years and then suggest where IP practice in the life sciences may be heading in the coming years.
Stem Cell Patents After The America Invents Act, Jacob S. Sherkow, Christopher Scott
Stem Cell Patents After The America Invents Act, Jacob S. Sherkow, Christopher Scott
Articles & Chapters
Under the newly passed Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office may hear new challenges to stem cell patents. Here, we explore how the new law affects challenges to stem cell patents, focusing on two recent cases, and discuss the future of stem cell patent disputes.
Patent Reform And Best Mode: A Signal To The Patent Office Or A Step Toward Elimination?, Ryan G. Vacca
Patent Reform And Best Mode: A Signal To The Patent Office Or A Step Toward Elimination?, Ryan G. Vacca
Akron Law Faculty Publications
On September 16, 2011, President Obama signed the America Invents Act (AIA), the first major overhaul of the patent system in nearly sixty years. This article analyzes the recent change to patent law's best mode requirement under the AIA. Before the AIA, patent applicants were required, at the time of submitting their application, to disclose the best mode of carrying out the invention as contemplated by the inventor. A failure to disclose the best mode was a basis for a finding of invalidity of the relevant claims or could render the entire patent unenforceable under the doctrine of inequitable conduct. …
Patent Reform And Best Mode: A Signal To The Patent Office Or A Step Toward Elimination?, Ryan G. Vacca
Patent Reform And Best Mode: A Signal To The Patent Office Or A Step Toward Elimination?, Ryan G. Vacca
Law Faculty Scholarship
On September 16, 2011, President Obama signed the America Invents Act (AIA), the first major overhaul of the patent system in nearly sixty years. This article analyzes the recent change to patent law's best mode requirement under the AIA. Before the AIA, patent applicants were required, at the time of submitting their application, to disclose the best mode of carrying out the invention as contemplated by the inventor. A failure to disclose the best mode was a basis for a finding of invalidity of the relevant claims or could render the entire patent unenforceable under the doctrine of inequitable conduct. …