Deeply rooted in our system of American jurisprudence is the notion that every legal right requires a remedy. This follows from the very nature of a legal right. A legal right imposes a correlative duty on one to act or refrain from acting for the benefit of another. Unless this duty can be enforced, it is not a duty. Rather, it is merely a hope or desire on the part of the beneficiary that the act or forbearance will occur. Thus, a right without a remedy is simply not a right at all. Against this backdrop, recent changes to the best mode requirement under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act will be examined.
Under our patent laws, the United States government is empowered to grant inventors a limited monopoly on their inventions in exchange for public disclosure. The public disclosure must be sufficient to enable one skilled in the art to practice the invention once the monopoly expires. Moreover, the public disclosure must include the "best mode" contemplated by the inventor for carrying out the invention. The purpose of the best mode requirement is to prevent an inventor from obtaining a patent on his invention, while at the same time protecting the best implementation of the invention as trade secret.
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