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Statutory Bar: The Experimental Use Exception 743<br />

It is common in the software industry to release so called “beta-test” versions of<br />

software in order to test them. Zeitgeist is prominently marked “Experimental beta test<br />

version.” The user does not install any software, simply queries a typical Google search<br />

form on the Zeitgeist web page. The interface is clean: there are no terms of use or<br />

advertisements to be seen. In August 2014, Google asks you if they can patent the Zeitgeist<br />

software. Assume that Zeitgeist is patentable subject matter and that it is otherwise<br />

novel and non-obvious. Your answer?<br />

b.) Aspirin has long been in the public domain. Bayer, aspirin’s original inventor, has<br />

just discovered that taking a baby aspirin every other day reduces the risk of heart attack<br />

or stroke. Aspirin has side effects however, often causing gastric upset. Bayer does<br />

further experimentation and finds that taking aspirin with milk or food helps to avoid<br />

those side effects. It wishes to patent “a method for lowering risk of heart attack and<br />

strokes by the use of acetylsalicylic acid [aspirin’s ingredient] in certain doses combined<br />

with various gastric protective measures.” For purposes of this hypothetical assume<br />

that no-one has ever detected the correlation between aspirin and heart-health<br />

before. Is Bayer’s method novel? Does it pass the patentable subject matter test?<br />

c.) What are the differences between the requirement of novelty (and, later, nonobviousness)<br />

described here in the context of patents and the requirement of originality<br />

explained in the copyright context in Feist? Are there constitutional differences?

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