Correa on patent fuzziness

From IPS News service:

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In this column*, Carlos Correa, the South Centre's special adviser on trade and intellectual property issues, argues that the rights conferred by patents are based on partial and often imperfect factual determinations and it is thus “fuzziness” rather than “definitiveness” that characterises patent grants. This, he says, is not accidental, but deliberately sought by patent applicants to discourage competitors.

GENEVA, Feb 3 2015 (IPS) - Industry’s demands and political pressures exerted by developed countries to expand and strengthen patent protection worldwide have been based on the argument that patents promote innovation and thereby contribute to achieve social, political and economic well-being, independently of the level of development of the country where they are granted and enforced.

This view ignores the fact that patents do not have the same impact in countries with different industrial bases, research and development (R&D) capabilities and availability of capital to finance innovation, among others.

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One notes that in the Nautilus case [134 S.Ct. 2120 (June 2, 2014) ], the US tightened the rules on "indefinite" patent claims:

A patent is invalid for indefiniteness if its claims, read in light of the specification delineating the patent, and the prosecution history, fail to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention.


IPS article
OPINION: Patent Examination and Legal Fictions: How Rights are Created on Feet of Clay