"The culmination of the Festo case actually restricts patent owner rights compared to pre-Festo," Mr. Carmichael said.
With its decision in Quanta Computer, the Court may continue its trend of restricting patent holders' rights.
The Constitution's Patent Clause restricts patent protection to the "useful Arts," which at the time primarily meant the work of skilled workers and artisans, particularly in engineering and manufacturing.
Such provisions take several forms: first, TRIPS-plus commitmextendxthed the protection on patents, particularly for pharmaceuticals and data, which take the form of wider patent applicability, restricting patent oppositions, and/or extension of the patent durability.
The treaty also restricts patents, copyrights, and trademarks, and outlines the removal of investment restrictions among the three countries.
Other firms, such as Accenture and American Express, warn that the court will distort inventors' incentives if it restricts patents on useful methods for minimising risk or managing information.John Squires, the chief intellectual-property counsel at Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, says business-methods patents are an important way to safeguard the invention of innovative financial techniques.
In fields where innovation is a cumulative process, he argued, restricting patents would cause firms to lose some of their monopoly rights, but they would gain the opportunity to use the innovations of others.
Use of such IT resources may be further restricted by patent law, as a trade secret, or by contract in the form of a license or other agreement.
Nevertheless, exchange of information is still restricted by patent law, as well as by institutional, cultural and traditional hurdles that create protective barriers hindering the free flow of this valuable commodity.
