Progress in a Time of War
It may be thermonuclear war, but at least it’s out in the open. We have Steve Jobs to thank, not only for his brilliant contributions to technology, but for launching Apple’s thermonuclear war against...
View ArticleA History of Abuse
The U.S. patent system is almost as old as our country. The power to create patents was included in the constitution, and the first Patent Act was enacted in 1790. A lot of opponents of patent reform...
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Recipient of the First Software Patent Comes Out Criticizing the Current System
In an interesting historical tidbit, last week the Guardian in the United Kingdom published an interview of Martin Goetz. Goetz is the person awarded the first software patent back in 1968. In a...
View ArticlePreviewing CLS Bank v. Alice
Tomorrow, February 8, the full Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”), who receives nearly all patent appeals, will hear oral arguments in CLS Bank v. Alice Corp. This case could...
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The PTO’s Inability To Reject An Application For Good Has A Long History
I was recently alerted1 to an entry in John Q. Adams’ diary, pertaining to patents in the early days of the United States. The entry, from Dec. 27, 1804, reads: “Next I called at Dr. [William]...
View ArticleFounders On Patents: Madison On The Dangers Of Patents
James Madison is credited with introducing the Patent and Copyright Clause to the Constitution, and defended that clause in Federalist 43, stating “[t]he utility of this power will scarcely be...
View ArticleBeauchamp on Founding-Era Patent Revocation
An article from Prof. Chris Beauchamp, newly published in the Vanderbilt Law Review and titled “Repealing Patents”, examines the history of Founding-era patent revocation. It’s a complex story,...
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Jefferson on Abstract Ideas
I occasionally [1][2][3] dig into the available Founding-era record to see what we might be able to glean from the Founders’ words with relevance to modern debates on patent law and policy. With the...
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