Constitutional Problems With the Kentucky Proposal (Supported by Mitch McConnell) to Change the Way U.S. Senate Vacancies Are Filled

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR

In this second of a series of columns, Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar comments on the Kentucky proposal to change the way U.S. Senate vacancies are filled. Dean Amar argues that the Seventeenth Amendment precludes such a proposal, which would allow the state legislature to substantively constrain the governor’s choices in making a temporary appointment.

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In Re Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University

Court: US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Docket: 20-1288

Opinion Date: March 25, 2021

Judge: Jimmie V. Reyna

Areas of Law: Intellectual Property, Patents

Stanford’s 2012 patent application is directed to computerized statistical methods for determining haplotype phase. A haplotype phase acts as an indication of the parent from whom a gene has been inherited. The written description explains that accurately estimating haplotype phase based on genotype data obtained through sequencing an individual’s genome “plays pivotal roles in population and medical genetic studies.” The application is directed to methods for inferring haplotype phase in a collection of unrelated individuals. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s final rejection of the patent claims, applying the two-step “Alice” analysis to determine patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101 and finding that the claims involve patent-ineligible subject matter. The rejected claims are drawn to abstract mathematical calculations and statistical modeling, and similar subject matter that is not patent-eligible. The improvement in computational accuracy alleged by Stanford does not qualify as an improvement to a technological process; rather, it is merely an enhancement to the abstract mathematical calculation of haplotype phase itself.