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Predictability And Patentable Processes: The Federal Circuit’S In Re Bilski Decision And Its Effect On The Incentive To Invent, William M. Schuster
Predictability And Patentable Processes: The Federal Circuit’S In Re Bilski Decision And Its Effect On The Incentive To Invent, William M. Schuster
William M. Schuster II
Throughout the past two centuries, the U.S. patent system has defined the scope of (potentially) patentable processes by proscribing patents on fundamental principles (including abstract ideas, laws of nature, and natural phenomena). Unfortunately, such a description of patentable subject matter led to ambiguity and unpredictability in the application of the patent laws. In 2008, the Federal Circuit addressed this uncertainty by promulgating a new standard to describe the ambit of patentable processes: a process may constitute patentable subject matter if (1) it utilizes a particular machine or apparatus, or (2) it transforms an object into a different state or thing. …