Prof. Cotter Cited in Federal Circuit Opinion

In Praxair Distribution, Inc. v. Mallinckrodt Hospital Products, Inc. (Fed. Cir. May 16, 2018), Judge Pauline Newman filed a concurring opinion quoting Professor Thomas Cotter’s 2007 article, “A Burkean Perspective on Patent Eligibility,” for its discussion of patent law’s “printed matter” doctrine.  According to the article, “[B]eginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the USPTO and the courts began rejecting applications claiming purportedly novel types of business forms under the ‘printed matter’ doctrine. By most accounts, the doctrine was intended to preserve the boundary between patent and copyright law.”