My post today is a pointer to my guest post at the Patently-O blog called America’s First Patents. Here is the first paragraph:
My forthcoming Florida Law Review article, America’s First Patents, examines every available patent issued during the first 50 years of patenting in the United States. A full draft is accessible at this SSRN page. The article reaches three conclusions:
- Our patentable subject matter jurisprudence with respect to methods can, in part, blame its current unclarity on early decisions by a few important judges to import British law into the new patent system.
- Early patenting trends suggest that Congress has never intended new subject areas be limited until Congress explicitly allowed the new subject area.
- The machine-or-transformation test, which allows a method patent only if the process involves a machine or transforms matter, has no basis in historic patenting practices.