Articles by Raymond Van Dyke

Last week marked the 224th anniversary of the U.S. patent system, an institution designed and brought forth 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 patent laws to obtain colonial ...

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. That's because the instructor added two new ess...

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 urging of lobbyists, is ready to label many innovators and patentees as "patent trolls," categorically unworthy of participating in the patent process and subject to stiff penalties...

In a hotly contested case, Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, the Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously decided that some of Myriad's patent claims were invalid for claiming products of nature. However, the Court also held that other Myriad patent claims were perfectly valid. ...

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 first to apply for a patent. The new law awards inven...

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 anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want?" ...

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 and DNA lines, new medical treatments and others. The case being heard Tuesday is Bowman v. Monsanto...

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, some economists and advisors have recently advocated the abrogation of patent rights for industries involved with software. Indeed, some argue that software patents are deleterious to the public good...

In a heavily anticipated verdict, a jury last week found Samsung guilty of patent infringement and ordered it to pay over US$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 against Apple for infringement of wireless techno...

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 (AIA), the United States Patent & Trademark Office has been diligently formulating new rules governing patent procedures. Many in the ...

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 complicated are the patents that cover the many manifes...

More than 50 years ago, Ayn Rand graphically illustrated the collapse of an economic system that failed to reward individual initiative. 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 T...

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 patentability door be closed on certain technologies. In a highly fractionated opinion, the Supreme Court refused to close that door but still left us in limbo...

The Supreme Court on Monday continued its trend toward restricting patent rights with its ruling in the Quanta Computer v. LG Electronics case. In the unanimous opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court addressed a seemingly simple principle called "patent exhaustion." In other words, what restrictions can patent holders place on products that are sold?...

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. At issue was a draconian rules package that placed serious restrictions on patentees, hampering their patenting efforts The ...

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 involvesLG licensing some chipset patents to Intel with some express contractual provisions -- including one requiring that Intel notify its customer...

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 to serve the greater public good. Although fiction, some of these societal concerns are mirrored in various proposed changes to the patent laws under consideration today...

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 challenge the patents under the agreement; instead,...

Tuesday at the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices heard arguments concerning a basic tenet of patent law. In addition to being new, any invention for patent must be deemed "nonobvious" over what is already known; i.e., the innovation must represent some technological advance -- even if slight ...

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