Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Amazon case appealed

The Federal Government has appealed the recent Amazon case dealing with patentable subject matter.  HERE is a copy of the Notice of Appeal (from Alan Macek's ippractice.ca).  Unsurprisingly, the government is appealing on a long list of grounds. 

An interesting background point - there may be an underlying clash between the "spirit" of the invention and what the claims actually say.  For example, suppose that a person has invented a "business method" (whatever that is) but the actual claim says "A machine comprising..." - is the court and patent office bound to treat that claim as a claim to a machine (which is definitely patentable subject matter) and then deal with it under the usual rubrics of anticipation, obviousness, utility etc.?  What if the claim is for "A system comprising..."?   Supposedly, the purposive approach to claim construction does away the "spirit" of the invention, but some courts and officials keep on wanting to resurrect it under a different name...

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