The CRISPR Patents and Their Hindrance to Innovation
One of the major battles going on in patent law is that concerning the CRISPR gene-editing technology. Basically, this technology allows for the modification of genes in living organisms. As…
Lying In Wait: Patent Prosecution After the Elimination of Laches
In their March 21 decision on SCA Hygiene Products AB v. First Quality Baby Products LLC, the Supreme Court eliminated the laches defense in patent prosecution cases, potentially making it…
Still Better to be an Inventor than an Author – Comparing Copyright and Patent for Software Algorithms
With the 2014 decision in Alice, SCOTUS reiterated the two-step Mayo framework applied to method and software patents. A patent application is deemed unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §101 if (1)…
Final and Unappealable: Federal Circuit Will Not Review PTAB IPR Decisions
What is inter partes review? Inter partes review (IPR) is a new procedure under the America Invents Act (AIA) for challenging the validity of one or more claims of a…
Akamai and Divided Infringement of Method Claims
In August of 2015, the federal circuit met en banc in Akamai v. Limelight to settle a long-standing issue: When multiple parties perform all the steps to a patented method,…
Why Tesla Should Consider Amending its Patent Pledge
Over two years ago, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk announced that the company would not initiate any patent lawsuits against anyone who was using Tesla’s technology in good faith. This pledge…
Climbing Out of the Rabbit Hole – Post-Alice Decisions on Patentability of Software Inventions
In early 2016, Google DeepMind unveiled the AlphaGo project, a gaming algorithm based on machine learning and dedicated to the last remaining game where humans held superior against computers—Go,…
How Will The Supreme Court Decide Samsung v. Apple?
On October 11, 2016, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc. on the issue of whether damages resulting from the infringement of a design…
Do Patents Make Inventors Legally Responsible?
In 2013, a child was paralyzed after a distracted driver in a Dodge Ram truck collided into a sports utility vehicle. The driver and a passenger of the struck vehicle…
CRISPR: The Final Interference
Background CRISPR (“Clustered regularly interspaced shorty palindromic repeats”), also known as CRISPR-Cas9, is a recent advancement in biotechnology that allows for genetic manipulation. This monumental discovery is currently at the…