Implications of the Latest Interpretations of the Patent Law by the United States Supreme Court

Since the inception of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit("the Federal Circuit") in 1982, the Supreme Court rarely reviewed the patent cases and ensured the Federal Circuit with freedom to independently interpret the patent law and set the doctrines and standards in the field for the next 30 years. Beginning from 2001, however, the Supreme Court began taking on cases dealing with substantive issues of the patent law, and in 2006~2008, the number had risen to 6 cases, all of them dealing with the substantive law, and all of which had been overturned from the Federal Circuit's decisions. Looking at the cases selected and decided by the Supreme Court, (1) in some cases, the Supreme Court revisited the most fundamental doctrines of the patent law, such as the patentable subject matter and the requirements for patentability; (2) in some cases, the Supreme Court criticized and rejected the Federal Circuit's self-developed doctrines, such as the automatic permanent injunction and the "teaching, suggestion, and motivation" test; and (3) in some cases, the Supreme Court sided with the patent users/infringers belonging to special categories, such as customers of the licensees, licensees, and entities actively engage in research and development and/or commercial activities. Although implications of the Supreme Court's recent decisions in the patent law are yet to be determined, through its decisions, the Supreme Court had taken * Professor of Law, Inha University Implications of the Latest Interpretations of the Patent Law by the United States Supreme Court 23 noticeable steps in dealing with the outcry from the low-quality, and over-crowded business methods and software patents, as well as the patent trolls evolved from the explosion of such patents. However, despite of the problems, the availability and flexibility of patent protection under business method and software patents led the software and IT industry to exchange and share their information and technologies, which contributed to the advancement in the technology, open source licensing, and standardization efforts. By placing higher standards for business method and software patents, companies and/or organizations who had previously relied on patents for protecting their proprietary technology will look to trade secret law protection and accordingly tighten internal security procedures, ultimate resulting in the return of the software and IT industry to underground. keyword