Article Abstract:
Claim drafters tend to thwart congressional intent and judicial reasoning by skillful claim drafting linking the scope of proprietary patent rights with the format of the claim. and the format of a patent claim should play a significant part in determining the proprietor's substantive rights. The courts should use phenomenological techniques in determining whether the ontic dimension of a technology lies in technique or artifact. Nonobviousness should also be a requirement for patentability, and this would be an additional reason to reject Beauregard-style claims.
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Article Abstract:
The "propagated signal" patent claim is the new frontier in intellectual property law after In re Beauregard and is a claim directed to a manufactured transient phenomenon, such as an electrical, optical or acoustical signal. The Patent and Trademark Office seems to fully support this type of claim, at least in the electrical signal context. Until the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit specifically rules on the legality of the propagated signal patent claim, it is wise to include the more conventional apparatus and method claims in the application.
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Article Abstract:
Copyright protection of literal program code does not seem to impede the incremental improvement of most program technology, and it works well to make illegal the sort of cheap and fast reproduction which, if permitted, could help destroy incentives for computer program production. The functional aspects of the code should, however, be only patentable, provided these functional elements meet the standard tests of novelty, usefulness, and nonobviousness.
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