This week, we are pleased to have a guest post from John Cordani. John is a member of Robinson+Cole’s Manufacturing Industry Team and regularly counsels clients on intellectual property issues involving patent procurement, licensing, and litigation.
It is no secret that the competitive edge of U.S.-based manufacturers is often predicated, at least in large part, on technological innovation and the patents that protect them. The broader the patents, the better. Usually the only significant obstacle faced by manufacturers trying to obtain broad patent rights was ensuring that their patents were still narrow enough to be new and non-obvious in light of the known technologies in the industry. Most manufactures are not used to considering whether their innovations are not eligible for patent protection in the first place. After all, in order to be patent eligible, an invention need only be drawn to a “new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” Since the statute explicitly calls out “manufactures” as eligible for patenting, manufacturers might be forgiven for believing that their patents would easily satisfy this standard. Not so, says the Federal Circuit.
Continue Reading Manufacturers are Not Immune to Claims that their Inventions are Patent-Ineligible