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The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.
Neither software nor computer programs are explicitly mentioned in statutory United States patent law. Patent law has changed to address new technologies, and decisions of the United States Supreme Court and United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) beginning in the latter part of the 20th century have sought to clarify the boundary between patent-eligible and patent-ineligible subject matter for a number of new technologies including computers and software. The first computer software case in the Supreme Court was Gottschalk v. Benson in 1972. Since then, the Supreme Court has decided about a half dozen cases touching on the patent eligibility of software-related inventions.
Business method patents are a class of patents which disclose and claim new methods of doing business. This includes new types of e-commerce, insurance, banking and tax compliance etc. Business method patents are a relatively new species of patent and there have been several reviews investigating the appropriateness of patenting business methods. Nonetheless, they have become important assets for both independent inventors and major corporations.
Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limited time from profiting of a patented technology without the consent of the patent-holder. Specifically, it is the right to exclude others from: making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing, inducing others to infringe, applying for an FDA approval, and/or offering a product specially adapted for practice of the patent.
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) is an administrative tribunal within the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The TTAB is empowered to determine only the right to register a trademark. It has no authority to determine the right to use one, nor broader questions of infringement, unfair competition, damages or injunctive relief. The TTAB decides ex parte appeals from decisions by USPTO Examiners denying registration of marks, and inter partes proceedings challenging the registration of marks. Decisions of the TTAB may be appealed to a United States district court, or to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
NTP, Inc. is a Virginia-based patent holding company founded in 1992 by the late inventor Thomas J. Campana Jr. and Donald E. Stout. The company's primary asset is a portfolio of 50 US patents and additional pending US and international patent applications. These patents and patent applications disclose inventions in the fields of wireless email and RF Antenna design. The named inventors include Andrew Andros and Thomas Campana. About half of the US patents were originally assigned to Telefind Corporation, a Florida-based company partly owned by Campana.
Ex parte Lundgren is a 2005 decision by the United States Patent and Trademark Office board of appeals, i.e. the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) concerning the standard for patent eligible subject matter in the United States. Under 35 U.S.C. 101, patent applicants are entitled to a patent only if they claim patent eligible subject matter. In Lundren, the applicant sought to patent a business method for evaluating and rewarding manager performance. Following an initial examination, the USPTO examiner rejected the applicant's claims, finding that they were not directed towards patent eligible subject matter. The applicant appealed this decision to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, which subsequently held that process inventions do not have to be in the technological arts in order to be patentable in the United States. They do, however, have to produce a "concrete, useful and tangible result".
In United States patent law, a reexamination is a process whereby anyone—third party or inventor—can have a U.S. patent reexamined by a patent examiner to verify that the subject matter it claims is patentable. To have a patent reexamined, an interested party must submit prior art, in the form of patents or printed publications, that raises a "substantial new question of patentability". The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act makes substantial changes to the U.S. patent system, including new mechanisms for challenging patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. One of the new mechanisms is a post-grant review proceeding, which will provide patent challengers expanded bases on which to attack patents.
The Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) is published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for use by patent attorneys and agents and patent examiners. It describes all of the laws and regulations that must be followed in the examination of U.S. patent applications, and articulates their application to an enormous variety of different situations. The MPEP is based on Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which derives its authority from Title 35 of the United States Code, as well as on case law arising under those titles. The first version of the MPEP was published in 1920 by the Patent and Trademark Office Society.
KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States concerning the issue of obviousness as applied to patent claims.
In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385, was an en banc decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on the patenting of method claims, particularly business methods. The Federal Circuit court affirmed the rejection of the patent claims involving a method of hedging risks in commodities trading. The court also reiterated the machine-or-transformation test as the applicable test for patent-eligible subject matter, and stated that the test in State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group should no longer be relied upon.
Ex parte Gutta is a precedential decision from the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) concerning the patentability of mathematical formulae and/or algorithms. The BPAI rejected Gutta as failing a two-prong test to determine if a machine or "manufacture" involving a mathematical algorithm complies with 35 U.S.C. § 101. The patentability of processes was previously addressed in a closely related case, In re Bilski.
Dickinson v. Zurko, 527 U.S. 150 (1999), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that appeals from the USPTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences are to be reviewed for whether the Board's conclusions are supported by "substantial evidence" under the APA.
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is an administrative law body of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) which decides issues of patentability. It was formed on September 16, 2012 as one part of the America Invents Act. Prior to its formation, the main judicial body in the USPTO was the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI).
The Washington Redskins trademark dispute was a legal effort by Native Americans to define the term "redskin" to be an offensive and pejorative racial slur to deprive the owners of the NFL's Washington Redskins of the ability to maintain federal trademark protection for the name. These efforts have primarily been carried forward in two cases brought before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). While prevailing in the most recent case in which the trademarks were cancelled, petitioners have withdrawn for further litigation now that the legal issue has become moot due to a decision in another case which found the relevant portion of the trademark law to be an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech.
An inter partes review (IPR) is a procedure for challenging the validity of a United States patent before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Iancu v. Brunetti, No. 18–302, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), is a Supreme Court of the United States case related to the registration of trademarks under the Lanham Act. It decided 6–3 that the provisions of the Lanham Act prohibiting registration of trademarks of "immoral" or "scandalous" matter is unconstitutional by permitting the United States Patent & Trademark Office to engage in viewpoint discrimination, which violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.
Peter v. NantKwest Inc., 589 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2019 term.
United States v. Arthrex, Inc., 594 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution as it related to patent judges on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). In a complex decision, the Court ruled that these judges were considered "primary officers" under the Appointments Clause, normally subject to appointment through the US President and the US Senate, but to remedy the matter, the Court ruled that the constitutional issue is resolved by allowing the PTAB decisions to be subject to review by the appropriately-appointed Director of the Patent Office.
References
- ↑ Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences Organization Chart Archived January 14, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences
- ↑ USPTO Press Release 11-31
- ↑ USPTO, Chapter 1200 Appeal, Manual of Patent Examining Procedure.
- ↑ John F. Duffy, Are Administrative Patent Judges Unconstitutional?, 2007, Patently-O Patent L.J. 21, or Duffy, John F., "Are Administrative Patent Judges Unconstitutional?" . Available at ssrn.com