Supreme Court's Surprising Interest In Patent Law
from the will-it-help-or-hurt? dept
While Congress is looking at various bad ideas to make the patent system even worse than it is today, it appears that the Supreme Court may be taking an interest in shaping the future of the patent system in the US as well. Some are noting how odd it is that the Supreme Court is looking at three different patent cases -- all of which may have dramatic effects on the system. The Supreme Court doesn't take many patent cases, so the fact that they're looking at three suggests the court is suddenly much more interested in patent-related issues. Whether or not that's a good thing, remains to be seen. The first two cases mentioned, we've already discussed. They involve the eBay-MercExchange battle over granting injunctions and the Metabolite case about whether or not someone can get a patent on the correlation between an amino acid and a vitamin -- i.e., something found in nature. The final case is the MedImmune case, and will determine whether or not it's okay for a company to challenge the validity of a patent after the company has already licensed the patent. The lower court said that MedImmune couldn't sue, because if it felt the patent was invalid, it never should have licensed it in the first place. This is problematic, because many companies will end up licensing patents simply to avoid the uncertainty involved in a long lawsuit. In fact, that's a big part of why RIM finally settled with NTP -- despite plenty of evidence that NTP's patents were invalid. While each of these decisions may impact patent law in some significant ways, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to what Congress could, but won't, do in improving the way the country tries to set up incentives for innovation.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Gaps
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Re: Gaps
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Re: Re: Gaps
If the courts come in and do something It may eventually get the congress to do actually their work. And come up with the best laws that they can agree to rather than making each other look bad and accomplishing nothing.
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Re: Re: Re: Gaps
to the court when it's a hot issue. Congress
figured this out long ago.
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Re: Re: Gaps
Courts have been making the law for hundreds of years. That's the source of the common law for negligence, contractual interpretation, etc. Courts making the law is one of politics' biggest red herrings.
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gaps
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Just wondering
Once I get that patent then I would sue that dumbass woman that spilled hot coffee on her and won millions from McDonalds.
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Re: Just wondering
GOM
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"Correlation"?
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Re: "Correlation"?
i hate when people who jump to conclusions decide to type something in order to prove somebody wrong but then just look like an idiot instead.
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Re: Re: "Correlation"?
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Re: Re: Re: "Correlation"?
"there is a correlation between a vitamin and an amino acid in bloodstream concentrations."
both sentences work... just like these two do:
"dorpus is an idiot."
"dorpus is an idiot because he doesn't understand english."
granted, the first statement is slightly ambiguous and doesn't give you all the information, but it still makes sense. (i'm referring to the first set of sentences, btw)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "Correlation"?
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Re: Just Wondering
On second thought, they're not dumbasses either. They're lawyers we elected to pass laws, and they pass laws that they use to earn retainers!! The dumbasses are us!! We keep electing lawyers!!
We have met the enemy and he is us!!
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