United States patent law

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Patent law
History of patent law Economics and patents Patent prosecution Patent application Patentability Patent infringement Licensing European patent law Japanese patent law United States patent law List of patent legal concepts
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Patent law

European patent law
Japanese patent law
United States patent law

List of patent legal concepts

United States patent law was established "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"[1] as provided in the United States Constitution. Congress implemented these protections as a first-to-invent patent legal framework. By contrast, all other national patent laws are first-to-file systems. The provisions of the law are laid out in Title 35 of the United States Code (U.S.C.) and give authority for the United States Patent and Trademark Office.[2] This system is permitted by Article One, Section 8(8) of the U.S. Constitution.

In the U.S., a patent is a right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, exporting, exporting components to be assembled into an infringing device outside the U.S., importing the product of a patented process practiced outside the U.S., inducing others to infringe, offering a product specially adapted for practice of the patent, and a few other very carefully defined categories. Thus, merely thinking about an invention, or drawing a diagram, is not an infringement. Research for "purely philosophical" inquiry is not an infringement, but research directed to commercial purposes is - unless the research is directed toward obtaining approval of the Food and Drug Administration for introduction of a generic version of a patented drug.

Under current US law, the term of patent is either 20 years from the earliest claimed filing date or 17 years from the issue date.

1 See also
2 External links

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US Patent Law

Patent Act of 1790, First Patent Act - April 7, 1790
Title 35 of the United States Code
American Inventors Protection Act (AIPA)
Bayh-Dole Act
Invention Secrecy Act (1951)
Patent Reform Act of 2005
Patent Reform Act of 2007
Plant Patent Act (1930)
28 USC 1498. This statute allows the US government to override patent protection (or contract another entity to do so) for public use purposes. The patent owner can sue for limited compensation. See [3]

City of Elizabeth v. American Nicholson Pavement Co. (1878)
Egbert v. Lippmann (1881)
Bauer & Cie. v. O'Donnell (1913)
Graver Tank & Manufacturing Co. v. Linde Air Products Co. (1950)
Graham v. John Deere Co. (1966)
Parker v. Flook (1978)
Diamond v. Chakrabarty (1980)
Diamond v. Diehr (1981)
Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc. (1996)
Warner-Jenkinson Company, Inc. v. Hilton Davis Chemical Co. (1997)
Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc. (1998)
Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co. (2002)
Merck v. Integra (2005)
eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. (2006)
KSR v. Teleflex (2006)

While the Federal Circuit sits below the Supreme Court in the hierarchy of U.S. courts, it is often thought of as the supreme court for patents. The U.S. Supreme Court rarely decides patent cases, and unless overruled by a Supreme Court case, Federal Circuit decisions can dictate the results of both patent prosecution and litigation.