Patent Baristas Comments Extensively on In Re Kubin : The Use of Conventional Techniques to Arrive at an Obvious Result Does Not Make an Invention

Stephen Albainy-Jenei at the blog Patent Baristas has an extensive posting on In re Kubin at Court: It’s Not An Invention If You Use Conventional Techniques To Make It, writing:

"In In re Kubin (08-1184), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the US Patent and Trademark Office's Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences was correct to hold claims as unpatentably obvious when applicants use "conventional techniques" to make an invention. This is bad news not just for biotech but for all arts."

The discussion by Albainy-Jenei is a good one, so be sure to read it, although we think that In re Kubin is not going to be long-term bad news for biotech or for the arts. The Federal Circuit in In re Kubin, following the United States Supreme Court's new obviousness standard in KSR, simply has finally drawn an understandable and desperately needed line for biotechnology patent applications - this far and no further. Not every foreseeable - obvious - increase in our scientific knowledge is - or should be - subject to patent protection. There is something we might call the "normal" progress of science - and that - to our mind - is not invention.

The patent situation in biotechnology has gotten as much out of hand as in the rest of the patent world. We need merely to refer to the Google Public Policy Blog where Michelle Lee, Head of Patents and Patent Strategy at Google, writes in Patent reform needed more than ever:

"After the last time I blogged about patent reform in late 2007, the House went on to approve the Patent Reform Act. The bill unfortunately got bogged down in the Senate the following year. Since then the problems of the current system — and the need for reform — have only grown.

Consider this: Of the 20 patent lawsuits filed against Google since late 2007, all but two have been filed by plaintiffs who don’t make or sell any real product or service — in other words, by non-practicing entities or “patent trolls.” Most of these cases seem to feature the same small set of contingent fee plaintiff's lawyers asserting patent claims against the same small set of companies. We've also noticed a more disturbing trend: in many of these cases, the patents being asserted against us are owned by — and in a surprising number of cases, are even “invented” by — patent lawyers themselves.

Unfortunately, the temptations and opportunities for abuse have gotten too high. Lawyers and plaintiffs have seen the potentially huge payoffs available in patent litigation. Before 1990, there had been just one patent damage award of over $100 million. Since 1990, there have been at least 15, with at least five topping $500 million." [emphasis added by LawPundit]

As the current world financial crisis shows, especially in the United States - which is bogged down by a mountain of debt to various vested financial interests, including those created by patent monopolies - you can't have the non-producing sectors of society sucking the life out of the economy without serious deleterious economic and political consequences.