Federal Circuit to Decide Patentability of Crustless Sandwich

On April 6 at 2:00 pm, Judges Clevenger, Gajarsa & Prost will hear in re Kretchman (Case No. 04–1448) that involves peanut butter and jelly sandwich technology.  Smuckers has already received one patent on its highly profitable “Uncrustables,” and is now appealing a patent office rejection of a second, broader set of claims. Adam Jaffe was quoted in today’s Wall Street Journal poo-pooing the effort.

"People think it is amusing to talk about patents on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but it is a patent that never should have been issued," laments Adam Jaffe, professor of economics at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and a co-author of a book on the U.S. patent system. "This is a technology -- if you can call it that -- that has been around in many forms for many years."

I have not examined the proposed claims or the prior art, but it seems that the comments by Jaffe & his co-author Josh Lerner appear to be directed toward whether food packaging should be patentable subject matter.

Link:

• Wall Street Journal Article ($)
• Jaffe, Lerner Book: Innovation and its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It (2004).
• File Attachment: Sealed Crustless Sandwich Patent.pdf (329 KB)

(Thanks to TechLawAdvisor for the tip.)