Supreme Court Brief of Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioners in Bilski

Abstract

The Court should reject the Federal Circuit’s new, restrictive approach to patent eligibility because it is in conflict with the statute, the precedents of this Court, and sound public policy. The Federal Circuit’s narrow interpretation of patent eligibility strikes first at excluding patents in the area of business methods and software, in direct conflict with the Court’s decision in Diehr. Worse still, the Federal Circuit’s approach could easily cast a pall over all method claims in other areas of technology. Given the long established links between the eligibility rules for software and biotech, it is likely to spread its tentacles to biotech in particular, thereby undermining the huge boost that the Court’s decision in Chakrabarty gave to bioscience. Furthermore, the Federal Circuit’s approach will have a profound adverse effect on the public’s ability to benefit from Dr. Chakrabarty’s own research.