The following post comes from Terence Yen, a 4E at Scalia Law and a Research Assistant at CPIP.
By Terence Yen
In his new paper, Patent Eligibility and Investment, Professor David Taylor of the SMU Dedman School of Law explores whether the Supreme Court’s recent patent eligibility cases have changed the behavior of venture capital and private equity investment firms. Read more
In Tuesday’s McRO v. Bandai decision, the Federal Circuit has once again reversed a district court’s determination that a computer-implemented invention (aka “software patent”) was not patent eligible under Section 101 of the Patent Act. This continues the Federal Circuit’s recent trend of clarifying the Supreme Court’s two-step patent-eligibility test under Mayo and Alice. Read more
By Adam Mossoff and Kevin Madigan
Following the Supreme Court’s four decisions on patent eligibility for inventions under § 101 of the Patent Act, there has been much disruption and uncertainty in the patent system. The patent bar and most stakeholders in the innovation industries have found the Supreme Court’s decisions in Alice Corp. 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
Last week, CPIP released an important new policy brief, The Critical Role of Patents in the Development, Commercialization, and Utilization of Innovative Genetic Diagnostic Tests, by Professor Chris Holman. Professor Holman explains the important role that patents play not only in attracting the capital investment needed to bring genetic tests to market, but also in incentivizing companies to invest in educating patients and their doctors about new tests and in facilitating insurance reimbursements for new tests. Read more
By far the most important takeaway from today’s Supreme Court decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank is the Court’s acknowledgment that “many computer-implemented claims are formally addressed to patent-eligible subject matter.” Despite failing to alleviate the profound confusion caused by its recent §101 analysis in cases like Bilski, Myriad, Mayo, and plenty of earlier cases going all the way back to Benson, the Court once and for all put to rest the absurd notion that computer-implemented inventions are not patentable under §101. Read more
Today, there is significant public debate over patents on the digital processes and machines that comprise computer software programs. These are often referred to as “software patents,” but this is an odd moniker. Aside from the similarly mislabeled debate over “DNA patents,” nowhere else in the patent system do we refer to patents on machines or processes in a specific technological field in this way; for instance, people do not talk about “automobile brake patents” or “sex toy patents” as their own category of patents deserving of approval or scorn. Read more
[Cross Posted to Truth on the Market]
The recent New York Times article on the high-tech industry argues that software patents and the current “smart phone war” are a disaster for innovation, and it backs this with quotes and cites from a horde of academics and judges, like Judge Richard Posner, that software patents are causing “chaos.” Read more
