Repealing Patents

43 Pages Posted: 29 Sep 2017 Last revised: 5 Apr 2019

Date Written: September 27, 2017

Abstract

The first known patent case in the United States courts did not enforce a patent. Instead, it sought to repeal one. The practice of cancelling granted patent rights has appeared in various forms over the past two-and–a-quarter centuries, from the earliest U.S. patent law in 1790 to the new regime of inter partes review and post-grant review. With the Supreme Court’s recent scrutiny of the constitutionality of inter partes review, this history has taken on a new significance.

This Article uses new archival sources to uncover the history of patent cancellation during the first half-century of American patent law. These sources suggest that the early statutory provisions for repealing patents were more widely used and more broadly construed than has hitherto been realized. They also show that some U.S. courts in the early Republic repealed patents in a summary process without a jury, until the Supreme Court halted the practice. Each of these findings has implications—though not straightforward answers—for the new constitutional questions surrounding patent cancellation.

Keywords: Patent law, history of patent law, patent litigation, patent legislation, patent cancellation, Patent Office, inter partes review, patent reform, legal history, federal courts, Oil States Energy Services, Patent Act of 1790, Patent Act of 1793, U.S. Constitution, Seventh Amendment, Article III

Suggested Citation

Beauchamp, Christopher, Repealing Patents (September 27, 2017). Vanderbilt Law Review, Forthcoming, Brooklyn Law School, Legal Studies Paper No. 534, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3044003 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3044003

Christopher Beauchamp (Contact Author)

Brooklyn Law School ( email )

250 Joralemon Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
492
Abstract Views
3,059
Rank
119,397
PlumX Metrics