George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School

Rethinking § 101: Professor Talha Syed Takes a Different Look at Subject Matter Eligibility

The following post comes from Colin Kreutzer, a 2E at Scalia Law and a Research Assistant at CPIP.

shelves full of booksBy Colin Kreutzer

When most people think of patentability requirements, they think of whether an invention has been “done before.” Novelty and non-obviousness under 35 U.S.C. Read more

New Paper Explores Possibility of Gold-Plated Patents Beyond the PTAB’s Reach

files labeled as "patents"What if there is a way for a patent applicant to obtain a “gold-plated patent” that is immune to administrative cancellation before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO)? This intriguing notion is the subject of a recent paper by Professor Michael S. Read more

Flawed Marginal Cost Theory Should Not Be Applied to Intellectual Property

a lit lightbulb hanging next to unlit bulbsRecent calls for the government to lower prescription drug prices by overriding patent rights include proposals for the establishment of a marginal cost pricing system in the pharmaceutical industry (and in patent-based markets in general). As a previous article in this series details, some academics and advocates are now suggesting that the government use a federal law (known as § 1498) to force companies to sell patented drugs at the amount it costs to produce one unit of the drug—also known as the marginal cost. Read more

Proposed Misuse of Section 1498 Relies on the False Claim that Patents Are Not Property

hand under a lightbulb drawn on a chalkboardBy Kathleen Wills*

The question whether patents are property rights is a continuing and hotly debated topic in IP law. Despite an abundance of scholarship (see here, here, here, here, and here) detailing how intellectual property (“IP”) rights have long been equated with property rights in land and other tangible assets, critics often claim that this “propertarian” view of IP is a recent development. Read more

Statement of Professor Adam Mossoff on Oil States v. Greene’s Energy

Adam MossoffThe statement below is from Professor Adam Mossoff, whose law review articles (here and here) were heavily cited in Justice Gorsuch’s dissent (joined by Chief Justice Roberts) in today’s opinion in Oil States v. Greene’s Energy.

Adam Mossoff
Professor of Law
Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

For the first time, the Supreme Court holds that patents for new inventions are regulatory grants similar to monopoly grants for bridges or toll roads. Read more

Explaining Efficient Infringement

By Adam Mossoff & Bhamati Viswanathan

files labeled as "patents"In a recent New York Times op-ed, “The Patent Troll Smokescreen,” Joe Nocera used in print for the first time the term, “efficient infringement.” This pithy phrase quickly gained currency if only because it captures a well-known phenomenon that has been impossible to describe in even a single sentence. Read more

Federal Circuit Brings Some Clarity and Sanity Back to Patent Eligibility Doctrine

By Adam Mossoff and Kevin Madigan

closeup of a circuit boardFollowing 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

Statement of Professor Adam Mossoff on Akamai v. Limelight

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 One Year Anniversary: The Aftermath of #AliceStorm

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

Federal Circuit Threatens Innovation: Dissecting the Ariosa v. Sequenom Opinion

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