McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP is proud to be an official sponsor of the Spring 2015 IP Strategy Summit: Chicago set for May 12, 2015 at the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park Hotel.
The AIA has transformed the landscape: IP owners are finding it harder to monetize and enforce their patent portfolio and face growing hostility when they do. Yet IP leaders are being asked internally to deliver on revenue targets by proactively monetizing, licensing, selling and enforcing their IP assets. This surge in IP commercialization means that companies now have to defend against infringement claims from rivals, corporate trolls, as well as NPEs. IP leaders need to build a coherent offense/defense strategy on solid processes and tools: due diligence, portfolio evaluation, unified patent prosecution – all while benchmarking its effectiveness. With increased scrutiny from company boards and the media, IP executives must also demonstrate top-level management skills: allocating resources, making a strong business case for their strategies and getting leadership on board. The IP Strategy Summit covers all the challenges and opportunities of this new IP landscape.
MBHB partners Daniel Boehnen and Grantland Drutchas are featured co-speakers for the following panel presentation taking place at 9:45 a.m.:
Section 101 & Patent Subject Matter
In 1980, the US Supreme Court verdict in Diamond v. Chakrabarty established that “anything under the sun . . . made by man” is patent eligible in the US. But recent Supreme Court decisions have made the patent eligibility issue much more murky and confusing.
In 2013, the Supreme Court decision in Myriad Genetics held that isolated and purified human genes such as BRCA1/BRCA2 are products of nature and therefore are patent ineligible. In 2014, the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS held that computer implemented processes are not patentable if they simply apply an abstract idea. These and other cases in the life science and business method arenas have created difficulty in identifying a clear path to patent eligibility.
This panel will take a look at what the Supreme Court meant in 1980 when it said ‘made by man’ and discuss the problems created by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Mayo-Myriad as well as Alice Corp. and their progeny.
The additional co-speaker for this panel presentation is Ananda Chakrabarty, a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois.
View complete details here