Carbons Into Bytes: Patented Chemical Compound Protection in the Virtual World

“Virtual” molecular compounds, created in molecular modeling software, are increasingly useful in the process of rational drug design. When a physical compound is patented, however, virtual use of the compound allows researchers to circumvent the protection granted to the patentee. To acquire protection from unauthorized use of compounds in their virtual form, patentees must directly claim the virtual compound. But Supreme Court decisions such as Bilski v. Kappos and Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. call into question whether virtual compound claims are patentable subject matter under § 101. Using the guidance offered by the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit, this Issue Brief argues that virtual compound claims are not abstract ideas and therefore, consistent with patent policy, qualify as patentable subject matter

No pills for poor people? Understanding the disembowelment of India’s patent regime

The recent amendment to the Patent Act, 1970 brings India into full compliance with its obligations under the TRIPs Agreement, in particular allowing for product patents in the area of pharmaceuticals and agrichemicals. This amendment, the third to the 1970 Act, was characterised by a relatively muted rhetoric and a remarkable level of shared consensus amongst campaigners and critics. Focusing largely on domestic compulsions, as opposed to the global, the paper explores whether the shared consensus sets too narrow an agenda for patent reform. The paper suggests that the limits to implementing TRIPs are equally on account of ambivalence within the government with respect to intellectual property and the changing self- interest of sections of Indian pharma. Thus, despite a favourable international climate in the area of intellectual property (read Seattle, Cancun and Doha), the patent reform in India has been doubly constrained by the narrow agenda and domestic factors

In Re Bilski and the “Machine-or-Transformation” Test: Receding Boundaries for Patent Eligible Subject Matter

In order for a hopeful applicant to be granted a patent over his invention, his application must satisfy several procedural and substantive requirements. Among the substantive hurdles that an applicant must clear is the mandate that patents only be issued to applications claiming statutory subject matter within the meaning of §101 of the Patent Act. However, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) has not construed that Section consistently over the years. Since that court’s formation in 1982, it has espoused two tests for statutory subject matter, and each time has substantially abrogated, if not overruled, the prior formulation. Most recently, the Federal Circuit has handed down the machine-or-transformation test in an attempt to redraft the limits of patent eligibility based on subject matter. This iBrief will explore the significant changes that this new test has brought to the patentability doctrine

Beyond Invention: Patent as Knowledge Law

The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Bilski v. Kappos, concerning the legal standard for determining patentable subject matter under the American Patent Act, is used as a starting point for a brief review of historical, philosophical, and cultural influences on subject matter questions in both patent and copyright law. The article suggests that patent and copyright law jurisprudence was constructed initially by the Court with explicit attention to the relationship between these forms of intellectual property law and the roles of knowledge in society. Over time, explicit attention to that relationship has largely disappeared from the Court’s opinions. The article suggests that renewing consideration of the idea of a law of knowledge would bring some clarity not only to patentable subject matter questions in particular but also to much of intellectual property law in general

Introduction to TIPS: a theory for creative design

A highly intriguing problem in combining artificial intelligence and engineering design is automation of the creative and innovative phases of the design process. This paper gives a brief introduction to the theory of inventive problem solving (TIPS) selected as a theoretical basis of the authors' research efforts in this field. The research is conducted in the Stevin Project of the Knowledge-Based System Group of the University of Twente (Enschede, The Netherlands) in cooperation with the Invention Machine Laboratory (Minsk, Belarus). This collaboration aims at developing a formal basis for the creation of an automated reasoning system to support creative engineering design

Publish or patent?: Knowledge dissemination in agricultural biotechnology

"Plant transformation research has achieved outstanding progress in the development of transgenic crops over the past decades, and the research results have been spread through journal publications and patents. With the recent emergence of stronger intellectual property rights, investments in crop research and the landscape of plant transformation research have changed, along with the patterns of knowledge dissemination. In this paper, we discuss the recent trends in plant transformation research by examining patent and journal publication data during the last decade. The data analysis shows that there have been significant shifts toward applied research by developing countries and toward patenting as a means of knowledge dissemination during the past few decades, reflecting the increasing role of the private sector in developing countries in crop improvement research." from authors' abstractBiotechnology research, patents, Crop improvement, Science and technology, Genetic resources, Biodiversity, Journal publication, Developing countries,

Fictitious Commodities: A Theory of Intellectual Property Inspired by Karl Polanyi’s “Great Transformation”

The puzzle this Article addresses is this: how can it be explained that intellectual property (IP) laws and IP rights (IPRs) have continuously grown in number and expanded in scope, territorial reach, and duration, while at the same time have been contested, much more so than other branches of property law? This Article offers an explanation for this peculiar dynamic by applying insights and concepts of Karl Polanyi’s book “The Great Transformation” to IP. It reconstructs and then applies core Polanyian concepts of commodification (infra, II), fictitious commodities (infra, III), and countermovements (infra, IV) to the three main areas of IP, namely copyrights, patents, and trademarks, as they have evolved and are currently regulated in international and selected national laws. The analysis reveals that the history of IP can be told in terms of Polanyi’s famous “double movement”: efforts to commodify virtually every reproducible input/output face equally persistent opposition, which points out the disruption that IPRs inflict upon communication and competition. Whereas IPRs dis-embed informational artefacts from the uninterrupted flow of societal exchange and subject them to prior authorization requirements, IP countermovements call for their re-embedding, i.e. their usability irrespective of authorization. From a normative perspective, a Polanyian perspective on IP suggests that IP law and policy should ensure that market-based transactions coexist with non-market modes of accessing and sharing information so that authors, inventors, and other entrepreneurs have as many options as possibl

The neoliberal underpinnings of the bioeconomy: The ideological discourses and practices of economic competitiveness

When we talk about ideology and new genetics we tend to think of concepts like geneticisation and genetic essentialism, which present genetics and biology in deterministic terms. However, the aim of this article is to consider how a particular economic ideology - neoliberalism - has affected the bioeconomy rather than assuming that it is the inherent qualities of biotechnology that determine market value. In order to do this, the paper focuses on the discourses and practices of economic competitiveness that pervade biotechnology policy-making in the UK, Europe and the USA. Finally it will consider how the manufacture of scarcity - in order to produce the bioeconomy - has led to a problematic focus on a specific innovation paradigm that may prove detrimental to the development and distribution of new biotechnologies

Evaluation of a method and a computer tool for generating concept designs

The authors have developed a method/computer tool to assist (student) engineering designers in generating concept designs. The method is based on the chaining of physical laws and complementary basic schemata (BS). The tool generates chains which serve as an aid in the development of concept designs. In this paper, the authors compare concept designs generated by a control group (which used functional structure and morphological matrix) with those from an experimental group that used computer-generated chains. The experimental group was found to have generated a greater number of different solutions than the control group; the generation of different solutions indicates a high level of variety and a better chance to find potentially innovative solutions. The established difference in the number of different solutions is statistically significant and the results indicate that the BS facilitate greater variety of concept designs

Using Valuation-Based Decision Making to Increase the Efficiency of China\u27s Patent Subsidy Strategies

[Excerpt] “The Chinese government has grown concerned that its patent fee subsidy programs have not funded the most deserving patents, and thus they no longer wish to spend public resources to promote low-value patents. Instead, the government would prefer subsidy programs that encourage the most deserving patents. The Patent Strategy reflects this desire, as the fourth strategic focus of the Patent Strategy recognizes the need to “[o]ptimize [China’s] patent subsidy policy and further define the orientation to enhance patent quality.”19 This Article explains how a disciplined and transparent valuation-based decision making process can help the Chinese government design patent fee subsidy programs that allocate funds more consistently to deserving patents. In addition, this Article offers the outline of a practical valuation model the Chinese government could use to filter patent fee subsidy requests.