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Last week marked the 224th anniversary of the U.S. patent system, an institution designed to promote progress in the fledgling nation. Despite its value for more than two centuries, that system is under attack. Until the late 18th Century, innovative colonists in the Americas relied on British-based...

Imagine preparing for a major test based on two assigned essay questions. You read and analyze both, perhaps hire a tutor for a few thousand dollars, pay a large exam fee, and confidently take the test. The instructor says that your answers were outstanding, but instead of passing the test, you fail...

In AMC's Breaking Bad, high school chemistry teacher Walter White, although starting out as a protagonist, descends into depravity and ruin. Clearly, not all high school chemistry teachers are Walter Whites. Similarly, not all scientists, innovators and patent owners are evil. Yet Congress, at the u...

In a hotly contested case, the Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously decided that some of Myriad Genetics' patent claims were invalid for claiming products of nature. However, the Court also held that other Myriad patent claims were perfectly valid. In short, Myriad discovered the location and DNA s...

The most significant change to U.S. patent law since 1836 -- or perhaps 1790 -- is being implemented on March 16, 2013. Part of the America Invents Act of 2011, it concerns the doctrine of first-to-invent, laws concerning the protection of original inventors, regardless of whether they were the firs...

At the oral argument in Bowman v. Monsanto, Chief Justice Roberts cut off Bowman's attorney seconds into his delivery, questioning his thesis, which undermined the purposes of patent law. "Why in the world would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they sold the first one...

Patent laws remain in the crosshairs, despite the passage and near final implementation of the infamous America Invents Act of 2011. The Supreme Court is again hearing a case that has far-reaching implications for future innovation in self-replicating systems in fields such as nanotechnology, cell ...

In the latest film installment of Ayn Rand's influential novel, Atlas Shrugged, the government has taken the drastic step of seizing all patents, as well as copyrights, for the public good, under the so-called Fair Share Act. Although the U.S. government has not officially taken such a drastic step,...

In a heavily anticipated verdict, a jury last week found Samsung guilty of patent infringement and ordered it to pay over $1 billion to Apple. This victory for Apple in the smartphone wars is a warning to others who may desire to copy the look and feel of the Apple designs. Samsung's countersuit a...

Just as the erotic adventures of E.L. James fill the book shelves, the Federal Rules promulgate a different form of torture onto Americans, willingly or not. Pursuant to Congress' passage of the America Invents Act, the United States Patent & Trademark Office has been diligently formulating ne...

The complexities of modern life amuse us, confuse us and confound us. The vast majority of people using computers and smartphones have hardly a clue as to their inner workings. These devices are a mystery. They are magical, and we are much like Alice in this technological wonderland. Even more comp...

In Atlas Shrugged, innovators are penalized for their creativity, and their rewards are indiscriminately distributed to the worthy and unworthy, leading inevitably to the breakdown of the entire economic system. The new patent bills being considered by Congress likewise interrupt the economic reward...

The Bilski v. Kappos Supreme Court case was the latest skirmish in the ongoing war over the scope of patents. On the one side are purists who want the patent statute open to new technologies, and on the other are those who wish to see the patent laws more curtailed -- and particularly that the paten...

With a gavel instead of a wand, New York District Judge Robert Patterson on Monday found publisher RDR Books and Steven Vander Ark guilty of infringing the copyrights of J.K. Rowling and moviemaker Warner Brothers Entertainment. At issue was RDR's attempt to market and distribute a definitive lexi...

The Supreme Court on Monday continued its trend toward restricting patent rights with its ruling in the Quanta Computer v. LG Electronics case. In a unanimous opinion, the Court addressed a seemingly simple principle called "patent exhaustion." In other words, what restrictions can patent holders pl...

Last Halloween, the intellectual property community was mesmerized by the preliminary injunction hearing on the motion filed by GlaxoSmithKline and others to enjoin the Patent Office on the very eve of enactment of new rules. As Judge James C. Cacheris granted the preliminary injunction, a quiet che...

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear an argument in the Quanta v. LG Electronics case. The issues involve some interesting patent doctrines and their interplay with technologies of today. The case involves LG licensing some chipset patents to Intel with some express contractual provisions -- in...

Fifty years ago, novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand wrote of a society that hindered innovation and stifled the creative spirit. Atlas Shrugged told of a society where individual effort went unrewarded, where technological advancement was thwarted by short-term greed, and where the governments failed...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday handed down a decision that affects the value of licenses for patents. In particular, the decision was a repudiation of an established doctrine set forth by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which held that a patent licensee in good standing cannot generally ...

Last week's dismissal of the Metabolite case by the Supreme Court was a welcome relief to the intellectual property community, seemingly besieged with Supreme Court cases, eBay-inspired injunctive denials, patent reforms, Congressional pressures, the Blackberry brouhaha, and other challenges to the ...