scholarly journals Life After Bilski

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Lemley
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Real World ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Patent Law ◽  
District Courts ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Circuit ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
New Applications

In Bilski v. Kappos, the Supreme Court declined calls to categoricallyexclude business methods - or any technology - from the patent law. It alsorejected as the sole test of subject matter eligibility the FederalCircuit’s deeply-flawed "machine or transformation" test, under which noprocess is patentable unless it is tied to a particular machine ortransforms an article to another state or thing. Subsequent developmentsthreaten to undo that holding, however. Relying on the Court’s descriptionof the Federal Circuit test as a "useful and important clue', the U.S.Patent and Trademark Office, patent litigants, and district courts have allcontinued to rely on the machine-or-transformation test in the wake ofBilski: no longer as the sole rule, but as a presumptive starting pointthat threatens to effectively become mandatory. In this Article, we suggesta new way to understand the exclusion of abstract ideas from patentablesubject matter. No class of invention is inherently too abstract forpatenting. Rather, the rule against patenting abstract ideas is an effortto prevent inventors from claiming their ideas too broadly. By requiringthat patent claims be limited to a specific set of practical applicationsof an idea, the abstract ideas doctrine both makes the scope of theresulting patent clearer and leaves room for subsequent inventors toimprove upon - and patent new applications of - the same basic principle.Recasting the abstract ideas doctrine as an overclaiming test eliminatesthe constraints of the artificial machine-or-transformation test, as wellas the pointless effort to fit inventions into permissible or impermissiblecategories. It also helps understand some otherwise-inexplicabledistinctions in the case law. Testing for overclaiming allows courts tofocus on what really matters: whether the scope of the patentee's claimsare commensurate with the invention’s practical, real-world contribution.This inquiry, we suggest, is the touchstone of the abstract ideas analysis,and the way out of the post-Bilski confusion.

scholarly journals What is the "Invention"?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A Cotropia
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Patent Law ◽  
Single Sentence ◽  
Natural Reaction ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Circuit ◽  
Written Description

Patent law is in flux, with recent disputes and changes in doctrine fueled by increased attention from the Supreme Court and en banc activity by the Federal Circuit. The natural reaction is to analyze each doctrinal area involved on its own. Upon a closer look, however, many patent cases concern a single, fundamental dispute. Conflicts in opinions on such issues as claim interpretation methodology and the written description requirement are really disagreements over which "invention" the courts should be considering. There are two concepts of invention currently in play in patent decisions. The first is an "external invention" definition, in which courts define the invention by the detailed technology discussion in the patent specification's descriptions and drawings. Other decisions invoke a "claim-centered invention" definition, which relies almost exclusively on the claim, a single sentence at the end of the patent. Judging these two definitions against common patent theories can help to determine which best fits the theories'narratives.T his Article concludes that the external invention is more favorable because it grounds exclusivity in what the inventor has actually done or plans to do and, accordingly, is more likely to comport with common patent theories.

scholarly journals Pharmaceutical patents after KSR: What is not obvious?

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Lief ◽  
Peter Schuyler
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
The State ◽  
District Courts ◽  
Pharmaceutical Patents ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Circuit ◽  
The Law ◽  
Patent Validity

The Supreme Court recently revisited the question of patent validity based upon obviousness in KSR Int'l v Teleflex, Inc. The court rejected the Federal Circuit's rigid application of the ‘Teaching, Suggestion, Motivation’ test in determining the obviousness of patent claims, and reasserted its precedent regarding obviousness, beginning with the seminal 1852 HotchKiss decision. The decision arguably makes it easier to invalidate patents for obviousness. This paper analyzes the effect of KSR on the state of the law concerning the obviousness of pharmaceutical and biotechnology patents in the Federal Circuit and District Courts.

scholarly journals Dolly and Alice

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Burk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Somatic Cells ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Patentable Subject Matter ◽  
Federal Circuit

The opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, In re Roslin Institute, rejecting patent claims to mammals cloned from somatic cells, was rendered about a month before the United States Supreme Court's decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International. The Alice opinion explicitly sets out the standard for determining whether an invention falls within statutory patentable subject matter. Thus one is thus left to wonder what the Roslin opinion might have looked like had it been decided only a few weeks later, after the Alice decision was published, with the benefit of the Supreme Court's further direction on patentable subject matter. In this essay I explore whether in hindsight the Alice standard might have dictated a different outcome in Roslin, suggesting how the two-part test articulated by the Supreme Court in Alice might apply to a "products of nature" analysis for cloned mammals. Drawing on that analysis, I then use the Roslin case as a vehicle to highlight certain issues with the Supreme Court's current subject matter jurisprudence as applied to biotechnology. By juxtaposing Dolly with Alice, it becomes clear that the Supreme Court has revivified a number of dormant biotechnology patent problems in the guise of subject matter analysis.

Idenix v. Gilead: The enablement and written description limits of a genus claim

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-83
Author(s):  
Keith A Zullow ◽  
Cindy Chang ◽  
Sean Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Case Report ◽  
Hepatitis C Virus ◽  
Hepatitis C ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Circuit ◽  
Written Description ◽  
Insufficient Number

In Idenix Pharms. LLC v. Gilead Sci. Inc., 941 F.3d 1149 (Fed. Cir. 2019), the Federal Circuit affirmed a judgment of invalidity of a patent claiming methods for treating Hepatitis C virus for, inter alia, lack of enablement. The Supreme Court denied Idenix’s petition for a writ of certiorari, meaning that the Federal Circuit decision stands, and genus claims covering thousands of compounds that were supported by an insufficient number of examples have failed the enablement test not once, but twice. See Wyeth & Cordis Corp. v. Abbott Labs., 720 F.3d 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2013). This case report presents the context surrounding the Federal Circuit’s Idenix decision and the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case.

The concept of human dignity in the case-law of the Supreme Court of Canada on Charter Equality Rights

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 118-137
Author(s):  
Tatiana Vasilieva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Equality Rights ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Additional Burden ◽  
The Impact

This article explores the evolution of the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to the application of the concept of human dignity in constitutional equality cases. Traditionally, in human rights cases, this concept serves only to strengthen the argument, to show that the violation affects the person’s intrinsic worth. It is only in Canada and in South Africa that there is experience in applying the concept as a criterion for identifying discrimination. In 1999, in Law v. Canada, the Supreme Court recognized the purpose of Article 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 to be the protection of human dignity and stated that discrimination must be established based on assessment of the impact of a program or law on human dignity. However, in 2008, in R. v. Kapp, the Court noted that the application of the concept of human dignity creates difficulties and places an additional burden of prove on the plaintiff. It is no coincidence that victims of discrimination have preferred to seek protection before human rights tribunals and commissions, where the dignity-based test is not used. Subsequently, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the use of the concept of human dignity as a criterion for identifying discrimination. The unsuccessful experience of applying the concept of human dignity as legal test has demonstrated that not every theoretically correct legal construction is effective in adjudication.

The UK courts and EU law post-Brexit

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. Christopher-Vajda
Author(s):  
Christopher Vajda
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
National Courts ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Court Of Appeal

Following the expiry on 31 December 2020 of the ‘transition period’ under the UK/EU Withdrawal Agreement, the relationship between UK and EU law had changed. Whilst much EU legislation at that date will continue to apply in UK law as ‘retained EU law’ and judgments of the EU courts handed down before that date will remain binding on UK courts as ‘retained EU case law’, the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court can depart from that case law. Whilst EU court judgments handed down after that date are not binding on UK courts, they may be taken into account. This article considers both the status of EU retained case law and when the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal may depart from it, and the future of EU law that is not ‘retained EU case law’ and how judgments of the European Courts and national courts of its Member States may influence UK judges in the future.

Sperry Corp. v. United States

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-90
Author(s):  
Rose Cecile Chan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
World Trade ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Preliminary Ruling ◽  
Fifth Amendment ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Circuit

Plaintiffs, Sperry Corp. and Sperry World Trade Inc. (Sperry), received an award from the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal (Tribunal). Upon payment of the award, the United States deducted 2 percent of the total amount pursuant to a directive license issued by the Secretary of the Treasury regarding recovered claims by U.S. nationals against Iran. When plaintiffs challenged the authority of the Treasury to make the deduction and the United States Claims Court announced a preliminary ruling that concurred with plaintiffs’ position, the Executive persuaded Congress to approve legislation authorizing specified percentages to be deducted by the United States from Tribunal awards to U.S. citizens. Responding to the plaintiffs’ challenge to the constitutionality of the newly enacted statute, the United States Claims Court dismissed the suit and, on appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (per Meyer, J.) reversed and held: that the deduction constitutes a taking without compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In September 1988, the United States filed notice of appeal with the Supreme Court.

scholarly journals Pravni položaj poštenog i nepoštenog posjednika u odnosu na vlasnika stvari

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 527-543
Author(s):  
Jadranko Jug
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Basic Method ◽  
Unjust Enrichment ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Legal Position ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Basic Characteristics ◽  
The Right

This paper deals with the problems related to the legal position of honest and dishonest possessors in relation to the owner of things, that is, it analyses the rights belonging to the possessors of things and the demands that possessors may require from the owners of things to whom the possessors must submit those things. Also, in contrast, the rights and requirements are analysed of the owners of things in relation to honest and dishonest possessors. In practice, a dilemma arises in defi ning the essential and benefi cial expenditure incurred by honest possessors, what the presumptions are for and until when the right of retention may be exercised for the sake of remuneration of that expenditure, when the statute of limitations expires on that claim, and the signifi cance of the provisions of the Civil Obligations Act in relation to unjust enrichment, management without mandate and the right of retention, and which provisions regulate these or similar issues. The answers to some of these dilemmas have been provided in case law, and therefore the basic method used in the paper was analysis and research of case law, especially decisions by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia. The introduction to the paper provides the basic characteristics of the concept of possession and possession of things, and the type and quality of possession, to provide a basis for the subsequent analysis of the legal position of the possessor of a thing in relation to the owner of that thing.

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