By Adam Mossoff
In Akamai v. Limelight, the Federal Circuit expanded its definition of what it means for someone to be directly liable for patent infringement when they direct or control other people’s actions. Through its proper judicial role in interpreting the meaning of the portion of the Patent Act defining direct infringement — Section 271(a) — the court has brought an end to machinating schemes that made possible unauthorized uses of patented innovation. Read more
The following guest post comes from Philip Stevens, Director of the Geneva Network, a research and advocacy organization working on international health, trade, and intellectual property issues. The original research note can be found here.
By Philip Stevens
In the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, the U.S. Read more
By Devlin Hartline & Matthew Barblan
In its ClearCorrect opinion from early 2014, the International Trade Commission (ITC) issued cease and desist orders preventing the importation of infringing digital goods into the United States. The ITC’s 5-1 opinion has since been appealed to the Federal Circuit, with oral argument scheduled for the morning of August 11th, and the case has drawn a number of amicus briefs on both sides. Read more
Last March, forty economists and law professors submitted a letter to Congress expressing “deep concerns with the many flawed, unreliable, or incomplete studies about the American patent system that have been provided to members of Congress.” These concerns were confirmed again last week when Unified Patents released a report on patent litigation with the same kind of “highly exaggerated claims regarding patent trolls” that the professors were concerned about. Read more
We’ve all heard the narrative about patent licensing firms, often referred to pejoratively as “patent trolls.” These patent owners, who choose to license their innovations rather than build them, are the supposed poster-children of a “broken” patent system. It’s as if commercializing one’s property, just like a landlord leases his land for another to use, is suddenly a bad thing. Read more
The following post, by Robert R. Sachs, first appeared on the Bilski Blog, and it is reposted here with permission.
It’s been one year since the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank. On its face the opinion was relatively conservative, cautioning courts to “tread carefully” before invalidating patents, and emphasizing that the primary concern was to avoid preemption of “fundamental building blocks” of human ingenuity. Read more
By Patent Publius
Earlier this month, the Federal Circuit issued its opinion in Ariosa v. Sequenom, a closely-watched biotechnology case with significant repercussions for patent-eligibility analysis generally. Unfortunately, the Federal Circuit misapplies the Supreme Court’s analytical framework from Mayo v. Read more
By Adam Mossoff
In an important decision handed down today, the Supreme Court explicitly recognized that patents are property secured by the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause. In Horne v. Department of Agriculture, the Court held that the Takings Clause imposes a “categorical duty” on the government to pay just compensation whether it takes personal or real property. Read more
In the last two weeks, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees marked up wide-ranging patent legislation ostensibly aimed at combating frivolous litigation by so-called “patent trolls.” But while the stated purpose of the House and Senate bills—H.R. 9 (the “Innovation Act”) and S. Read more
In CPIP’s newest policy brief, Professor Saurabh Vishnubhakat examines the important role patents play in commercializing software innovation and supporting technology markets. He explains how a proper understanding of this commercial role requires a broader view of patents in software innovation than the all-too-common focus on a small handful of litigated patents and legal questions of patentability and patent quality. Read more