Law Commons^™

5 U.S.C. § 553: Patent Elephants In Process Mouseholes, Thomas G. Field

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “As the district court in Tafas v. Duda (Tafas I) recounted, in 2006, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) proposed to limit numbers of continuing patent applications, requests for continued examination, and claims that could be made as a matter of right. In 2007, following notice and comment procedures that generated hundreds of comments, many critical, the USPTO published final rules consonant with those objectives.

The district court in Tafas I issued a preliminary injunction and ultimately rejected those rules, saying “[b]ecause the USPTO’s rulemaking authority under 35 U.S.C. § 2(b)(2) does not extend to substantive rules, and …

Unsettling Drug Patent Settlements: A Framework For Presumptive Illegality, Michael A. Carrier

Michigan Law Review

A tidal wave of high drug prices has recently crashed across the U.S. economy. One of the primary culprits has been the increase in agreements by which brand-name drug manufacturers and generic firms have settled patent litigation. The framework for such agreements has been the Hatch-Waxman Act, which Congress enacted in 1984. One of the Act's goals was to provide incentives for generics to challenge brand-name patents. But brand firms have recently paid generics millions of dollars to drop their lawsuits and refrain from entering the market. These reverse-payment settlements threaten significant harm. Courts nonetheless have recently blessed them, explaining …

The Patent System's Relationship To Digital Entrepreneurship, Mark Chandler

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Patenting Cryptographic Technology, Greg Vetter

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The policy concerns intersecting patent law and cryptographic technology relate to the technology's beneficial uses in securing information in a commercial and social fabric that increasingly relies on computing and electronic communications for its makeup. The presence of patenting in a technology can impact diffusion of interoperable technology. Standardized embeddable cryptography facilitates its supply. Patent law for several decades has waxed and waned in its embrace of software implemented inventions rooted in abstract ideas such as the mathematics and mathematical algorithms underlying modern cryptography. This article documents the growth of cryptographic patenting. Then, in light of this growth and patent …

Willful Patent Infringement After In Re Seagate: Just What Is "Objectively Reckless" Infringement?, Randy R. Micheletti

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Recently the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dramatically change the rules for proving willful patent infringement—and justifying enhanced damages—in In re Seagate Technology. A patentee alleging willful infringement must now first prove "by clear and convincing evidence that the infringer acted despite an objectively high likelihood that its actions constituted infringement of a valid patent." He must then show that the objectively defined risk was "either known or so obvious that it should have been known to the accused infringer." The court expressly delegated substantive development of the new test to future cases. Because district …

Fighting Against Biopiracy: Does The Obligation To Disclose In Patent Applications Truly Help?, Jacques De Werra

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In the global fight against biopiracy, one of the key issues is to prevent the grant and exploitation of patents on traditional knowledge and genetic resources by requiring that patent applicants for inventions involving traditional knowledge and genetic resources disclose the source of those resources and provide evidence that the prior informed consent of the local owners of such resources has been obtained and that benefit-sharing agreements have been entered into with those owners.

This Article argues that a legal discussion of biopiracy should analyze the obligation to disclose the use of traditional knowledge and genetic resources in an invention …

Ksr International Co. V. Teleflex Inc.: The Supreme Court Declines The Opportunity To Finally Set The Record Straight And Articulate One Clear Standard For Determining Obviousness In Patent Cases, Ashley Houston

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Patenting Games: Baker V. Selden Revisited, Shubha Ghosh

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Patents are meant to protect the functional aspects of an invention. But patents, particularly patents on processes or methods, can cover non-functional, or expressive, activity. This Article explores this possibility in the context of patents covering games of various types. Patents on games can cover the actual play or use of a game with consequent implications for user-generated content produced by playing games. The Article documents this possibility in the area of fantasy sports and video games and proposes two solutions. The first solution relies on the Federal Circuit's recent decision in In "re Bilski," which restricts the patenting of …

Interface: The Push And Pull Of Patents, Peter Lee

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Pull Of Patents, Brett M. Frischmann

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.