Patent LawProf. Merges课件.ppt

Takimine (cont’d) In 1894 Takamine moved permanently to United States, settling in New York City. He opened his own private laboratory but allowed Parke, Davis Company to produce Takadiastase commercially. In 1901 he isolated and purified the hormone adrenalin in his laboratory, becoming the first person to accomplish this for a glandular hormone. Am Chem Soc’y, J. Chem Ed Online 精品文档 Takamine’s patents ‘176 Product patent Why was this valuable? Why not a process patent (see Chakrabarty) See p. 107 精品文档 What is the value of a product patent? Mulford used a different process to precipitate out the final adrenaline product Might not have infringed a detailed process patent if Takamine had claimed narrowly See p. 107 精品文档 Takamine’s patents (cont’d) ‘177 Patent “Salt” (acid) form of isolated hormone Why not at issue here? Why claim it? How could it have been valid? Prior art 精品文档 Patent LawProf. Merges Intro to Section 101 1.15.08 精品文档 Main Themes Living Subject matter Therapeutic correlations Intro to Software and business methods 精品文档 Chakrabarty: Questions 1. Why are “discovered” things not patentable? 2. Why are newly discovered laws of nature not patentable? 精品文档 Chakrabarty (cont’d) 3. Why isn’t Chakrabarty’s invention just a newly discovered law of nature? 4. Why don’t the Plant Patent Act and the PVPA show that Congress assumed living things to be unpatentable? 精品文档 Chakrabarty (cont’d) 5. Why is this decision so important if Chakrabarty could have obtained process claims anyway? 6. Would a cloned human be patentable under this decision? How broad is this holding? 精品文档 Page 72 “Congress thus recognized that the relevant distinction was not between living and inanimate things, but between products of nature, whether living or not, and human-made inventions.” 精品文档 Thesis/antithesis The Committee Reports accompanying the 1952 Act inform us that Congress intended statutory subject matter to “include anything under the sun that is made by