‘It’ being the nonsensical state of U.S. patent eligibility, that is. Over the last decade or so the U.S. Supreme Court has restricted the patentability of numerous inventions as ‘abstract’ or ‘laws of nature,’ including business techniques (Bilski v Kappos), medical inventions (Mayo v Prometheus), biotech inventions (Myriad Genetics), and computer software (Alice v […]
On July 13, 2020, the era of the NFL’s Washington Redskins ended (following pressure from the public and from corporate sponsors) and a new era began. Unfortunately, it was – and remains – an unnamed era. The team is currently called “The Washington Football Team” – it’s better than “The Washington Insert Name Here” but […]
Dear Doc: Recently, many companies are sending me long emails with their new “Terms and Conditions”. These are harder to read than hieroglyphics on a pyramid wall, but some parts seem more important because THEY ARE PRINTED IN ALL CAPS. So what is “arbitration” and why do companies want me to consent to it? Can […]
Food technology has come a long way over the past several decades. Great strides have been made in developing substitutes for meat, dairy, and gluten containing flours. We now have “milk” made from oats and almonds, meat substitutes made from various vegetable based ingredients, and gluten free bakery products made from amaranth, millet, sorghum and, would […]
Patent and invention owners should care. You should care. Barely a decade ago, Congress created the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and gave it the power of life and death over patents. In the years since, the PTAB has done exactly what Congress intended – reduce the cost to challenge and kill patents and […]
For 35 years, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) has been a powerful weapon in law enforcement’s arsenal against computer hackers. Essentially, it criminalized the standard definition of hacking – accessing information on a computer, where the user lacks authorization to do so. But what happens when someone is authorized to access the information, […]