The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will seek public comment on how muddled case law on patent eligibility has affected the technology and medical industries, according to a notice scheduled to be published Friday in the Federal Register.
The notice comes after Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Chris Coons (D-Del.) sent a letter in March to Drew Hirshfeld, the agency’s temporary leader, calling for information on how patent eligibility jurisprudence has harmed innovation in certain sectors.
U.S. Supreme Court decisions on patent eligibility in the past 10 years have created a “lack of consistency ...