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
Category: High Tech Industry
A Historical Perspective of Patent Litigation: Continued Innovation & Recurrent Controversy
In her forthcoming George Mason University Law Review article, “Trolls and Other Patent Inventions: Economic History and the Patent Controversy in the Twenty-First Century,” Professor B. Zorina Khan sheds light on today’s hot-button patent issues and controversies through a detailed exploration of concerns surrounding our patent system throughout its two hundred and twenty-four year evolution into what is today “the most effective economic engine known to man.” Read more
The Unintended Consequences of Patent "Reform"
By Steven Tjoe
Much of today’s patent policy debate focuses on the dynamics of patent litigation. Sensational anecdotes of abusive demand letters, litigants strategically exploiting bad patents, and tales of so-called “patent trolls” (reinforced by now debunked empirical claims) have captured the public’s imagination and spurred Congress to rush to revise the patent system. Read more
An Insightful Analysis of “Fair and Reasonable” in the Determination of FRAND Terms
By Steven Tjoe
In his forthcoming George Mason University Law Review article entitled “The Meaning of ‘Fair and Reasonable’ in the Context of Third-Party Determination of FRAND Terms,” Professor Damien Geradin explores the delicate balance of interests protected by the current system of arm’s length negotiations in the standard-setting process, and the detrimental effect disrupting this balance would have on standards-related technologies and our innovation economy. Read more
Taking a Whack at the DMCA: The Problem of Continuous Re-Posting
By Steven Tjoe
On Thursday March 13, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) notice and takedown system. Among the witnesses testifying at the hearing was CPIP Fellow Professor Sean O’Connor (Washington University School of Law), who offered his insights on Section 512 from his unique position as a law professor, former musician, and counsel to web businesses. Read more
Improving the DMCA's Notice and Takedown System
In conjunction with today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on the DMCA, CPIP Senior Scholar Prof. Mark Schultz published a critique of the notice and takedown system this morning on AEI’s TechPolicyDaily Blog.
In his critique, Prof. Schultz discusses CPIP’s policy brief by Prof. Read more
Crowdfunding's Impact on Start-Up IP Strategy
A Brief History of Software Patents (and Why They’re Valid)
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