Interference susceptibility of satellite 136 MHz telemetry link

Interference susceptibility of satellite 136 MHz telemetry lin

The Interpretation of Means Expressions During Prosecution

This article briefly explains how the scope of a claim including a means expression is determined both under the PTO view and a strict application of the statutory language. The lack of consensus and current state of the law in the area are illustrated through an analysis of several recent decisions of the Federal Circuit. The policies underlying the PTO and statutory methods of interpreting means expressions during prosecution are examined in an effort to demonstrate that the statutory method more effectively furthers the policies underlying the patent system

Patent Harmonization, Protectionism and Legislation

This essay raises questions about the Patent Harmonization Treaty. addressing the overall direction of harmonization in this country and the processes that are being applied to the harmonization effort. Section I of the essay compares the underlying goals of patent harmonization with those of the current United States patent system. The article contends that the legal rules relating to patents in this country evidence a specific intent to promote domestic industry. The aims of harmonization, in contrast, are fundamentally different. To be valid, then, patent harmonization may require a basic shift in the social consensus in this country concerning the use of patents. Section II examines the lawmaking processes that WIPO has used to arrive at the current text of the Patent Harmonization Treaty. The essay concludes that when viewed from the perspective of the national interests of the United States, WIPO\u27s mechanisms have been neither careful nor inclusive. Section III addresses the general feasibility of using legislative lawmaking methods to define the law of patents in this country. It argues that proper efforts to legislate harmonization are likely to be difficult and time consuming. The great majority of the current law of patents in the United States is the result of significant common law development. Recent legislation relating to patents has shown that legislated rules of patent law often have unintended effects. The current harmonization effort, moreover, is much more comprehensive than any patent legislation we have attempted to date. As a result, there are substantial reasons to decline the opportunity to design a harmonized set of patent laws through legislation

Patent Harmonization, Protectionism and Legislation

This essay raises questions about the Patent Harmonization Treaty. addressing the overall direction of harmonization in this country and the processes that are being applied to the harmonization effort. Section I of the essay compares the underlying goals of patent harmonization with those of the current United States patent system. The article contends that the legal rules relating to patents in this country evidence a specific intent to promote domestic industry. The aims of harmonization, in contrast, are fundamentally different. To be valid, then, patent harmonization may require a basic shift in the social consensus in this country concerning the use of patents. Section II examines the lawmaking processes that WIPO has used to arrive at the current text of the Patent Harmonization Treaty. The essay concludes that when viewed from the perspective of the national interests of the United States, WIPO\u27s mechanisms have been neither careful nor inclusive. Section III addresses the general feasibility of using legislative lawmaking methods to define the law of patents in this country. It argues that proper efforts to legislate harmonization are likely to be difficult and time consuming. The great majority of the current law of patents in the United States is the result of significant common law development. Recent legislation relating to patents has shown that legislated rules of patent law often have unintended effects. The current harmonization effort, moreover, is much more comprehensive than any patent legislation we have attempted to date. As a result, there are substantial reasons to decline the opportunity to design a harmonized set of patent laws through legislation

Commentary: Authority of the Commissioner Over the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

On August 3, 1992, the United States Patent and Trademark Office published a notice in the Federal Register requesting public comments on the PTO\u27s appeal procedures. Taken in context, then, the notice can be fairly said to raise the issue whether, under the existing statute, the Board is subservient to the Commissioner. It also raises the broader question of whether such a subservient arrangement is desirable or, alternatively, whether the statute should be modified if necessary to give the Board decisional independence from the Commissioner. This Commentary is directed primarily to this latter point. In summary, it concludes that the Commissioner, and not the Board, is inherently better suited to determine policy in the patent area. Whatever administrative lawmaking authority exists in the patent area should therefore reside in the Commissioner. Given this conclusion, there is little or nothing to gain from placing the adjudicatory powers of the Board outside the Commissioner\u27s supervision. Indeed, such a change would likely have negative effects. The most appropriate course is therefore to continue the Board\u27s present subservience to the Commissioner

Subjecting Rembrandt to the Rule of Law: Rule-Based Solutions for Determining the Patentability of Business Methods

This article is an attempt to refine the substantive law of patents as to reestablish the patent system\u27s control over the determination of whether business methods are patentable. It offers a framework for addressing business methods that allows the system to stay focused on the traditional goals of the statutory subject-matter requirement. It solves some of the problems that modern business methods present. The problems that it does not solve, it at least explains in a manner that sheds some light on the nature of the tasks that remain. This article takes considerable notice of how the relevant legal rules of patent law developed historically. This notice is deliberate. Many of the basic problems that the United States patent system is currently experiencing with business method patents are not actually new; they have instead troubled the system previously, but at a low level. This situation has now changed. But the change is not so much because the legal merits of modern business methods are new. Rather, it is because the methods are now both numerically commonplace and economically valuable. As a result, their patenting is being pressed often and with vigor

The Interpretation of Means Expressions During Prosecution

This article briefly explains how the scope of a claim including a means expression is determined both under the PTO view and a strict application of the statutory language. The lack of consensus and current state of the law in the area are illustrated through an analysis of several recent decisions of the Federal Circuit. The policies underlying the PTO and statutory methods of interpreting means expressions during prosecution are examined in an effort to demonstrate that the statutory method more effectively furthers the policies underlying the patent system

Judicial Deference to the PTO\u27s Interpretations of the Patent Law

This article attempts to provide a basis upon which to preserve the Federal Circuit\u27s current lawmaking primacy. Given the large body of preexisting literature on Chevron, USA, Inc v. Natural Resources Defense Council, it does not address whether Chevron allocates power between agencies and the courts optimally. Rather, the article examines how the PTO\u27s statutory interpretations should be reviewed under Chevron. In Section I, the article places the examination in context by describing the Chevron decision and its general implications. Section II of the article examines how Chevron should be applied specifically in the context of reviewing statutory interpretations of the PTO. The article observes that the Federal Circuit has so far avoided deferring to the PTO by emphasizing Congress\u27 intent as a limitation on the PTO\u27s lawmaking power. Under Chevron, however, Congress\u27 intent governs only where Congress has expressed itself clearly on the precise question at issue. The article argues that the PTO is outside the class of Federal agencies to whose statutory interpretations the judiciary owes deference. The PTO performs few of the traditional functions of Federal agencies. It is, in fact, structurally isolated from so much of the patent system that the assumptions of agency expertise responsible for Chevron are inapplicable. There is also evidence that Congress has affirmatively decided to give lawmaking power in the patent field to the courts and not the PTO. As a result, the article concludes, the courts need not defer to the PTO\u27s statutory interpretations even in those situations where the statutory language is ambiguous

Subjecting Rembrandt to the Rule of Law: Rule-based Solutions for Determining the Patentability of Business Methods

This article is an attempt to refine the substantive law of patents as to reestablish the patent system\u27s control over the determination of whether business methods are patentable. It offers a framework for addressing business methods that allows the system to stay focused on the traditional goals of the statutory subject-matter requirement. It solves some of the problems that modern business methods present. The problems that it does not solve, it at least explains in a manner that sheds some light on the nature of the tasks that remain. This article takes considerable notice of how the relevant legal rules of patent law developed historically. This notice is deliberate. Many of the basic problems that the United States patent system is currently experiencing with business method patents are not actually new; they have instead troubled the system previously, but at a low level. This situation has now changed. But the change is not so much because the legal merits of modern business methods are new. Rather, it is because the methods are now both numerically commonplace and economically valuable. As a result, their patenting is being pressed often and with vigor

The History of the Patent Harmonization Treaty: Economic Self-Interest as an Influence

How shall the United States decide whether to adopt the Patent Harmonization Treaty? What questions shall we ask? Whose answers shall we trust? What sources of information can provide us with the background needed for these inquiries? This article offers a framework in which to ask, and begin to answer, these questions. It focuses on the international community\u27s past efforts to harmonize the law of patents. It asserts not only that history provides context, but also, that the same history yields lessons directly applicable to many of the treaty\u27s basic issues. Section I discusses the immediate history of WIPO\u27s efforts to obtain the Patent Harmonization Treaty and summarizes the steps that have been taken to date before that organization. In addition, it also states the current procedural posture of the treaty negotiations. Section II places this immediate history in larger context. The international community has been grappling with the problems of foreign patenting for over a century. Many of those problems predate the first international patenting agreement, the Paris Convention. The article summarizes those problems. Section III outlines a set of inquiries to evaluate the Patent Harmonization Treaty. Fundamentally, we must discern the national interests of the United States and how the treaty will affect them. Given industry\u27s large role in designing the treaty, coupled with its historical disinterest in the costs of patenting, particular attention must be placed on the increased domestic costs that the Patent Harmonization Treaty will impose on the United States