Which actually seems a bit surprising, since this life sciences blog is pretty much the observations of one patent attorney – me -  on developments in IP law. I do want to take the time to thank my fairly regular guest commentators – particularly Stephan Danner, Bill Bennett, Ron Schutz and Paul Cole.  But, apart from Bryan Ness and Mary Hirsch here at SLW, who do a great job of getting posts up there quickly, often before some of “bigger” blawgs can react, I am pretty much the only “journalist”—as one young interviewer called me—on the staff.

I was thinking of how to summarize the last half decade of IP law in a few paragraphs, but it’s really not possible. Most of the important judicial decisions, as well as the AIA, have amounted to cut-backs – or at least, sequestrations – of patent rights. I think that the PTO does not want to be judged or legislated out of business, and I have to give them credit for not over-reacting to largely policy driven decisions like Bilski, Mayo, and Myriad. But give a workman, or a bureaucrat, a new tool and they are probably going to use it. Ariad is such a tool and both the PTO and the courts have been using the WDR like Thor’s hammer to crush patents with both “mechanism of action” claims and ill-defined elements. Of course, a bright spot among this carnage was the Thersense decision that obliterated Rule 56(b) – but where are the final rules? The administration of the PTO is on hold as 2014 begins.

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