The following post comes from David Ward, a 2L at Scalia Law and a Research Assistant at CPIP.
By David Ward
Venture capitalists pouring money into a small startup has become a sort of new American Dream for many innovators. The success stories of big American companies starting with nothing more than an idea have pervaded their way into pop culture, inspiring TV shows, movies, and the like. Read more
An oil well drilling rig is not an abstract idea. A method of operating an oil well drilling rig is also not an abstract idea. This proposition should be clear to all, but in TDE Petroleum Data Solutions v AKM Enterprise, the Federal Circuit held that a method of operating an oil well drilling rig is directed to the abstract idea of “storing data, receiving data, and using mathematics or a computer to organize that data and generate additional information.” Read more
Earlier this month, CPIP Senior Scholar Adam Mossoff penned an amicus brief in Trading Technologies v. CQG, currently on appeal to the Federal Circuit. The brief was joined by nine other IP scholars, including CPIP Senior Scholars Mark Schultz and Kristen Osenga. 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
The following guest post from Robert R. Sachs, Partner at Fenwick & West LLP, first appeared on the Bilski Blog, and it is reposted here with permission.
By Robert R. Sachs
Last year I christened the post-Alice impact on patents #Alicestorm, riffing on the hashtag #hellastorm used to refer to the Pineapple Express storms the drenched the Bay Area in December 2014. Read more
The following guest post from Robert R. Sachs, Partner at Fenwick & West LLP, first appeared on the Bilski Blog, and it is reposted here with permission.
By Robert R. Sachs
Alice has been busy the last two months, continuing to haunt the federal courts and the Knox and Randolph buildings at the USPTO. Read more
Here’s a brief excerpt of a post by Devlin Hartline that was published on IPWatchdog.
In an amicus brief co-authored by Kevin Noonan of McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP and Professor Adam Mossoff of George Mason University School of Law, twenty-three law professors urge the Federal Circuit to take a second look at the innovation-threatening panel decision in Ariosa v. 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
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
