Pasquale Joseph Federico

Pasquale ("Pat") Joseph Federico (March 25, 1902 – January 2, 1982 ) was a lifelong mathematician and longtime high-ranking official of the United States Patent Office.

Biography He was born in Monessen, Pennsylvania. About 1910 the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio where he gained a bachelor's degree in physics at Case Institute of Technology in 1923. He then received his LL.B or law degree from Washington College of Law in 1932.

Federico also served for many years as the Patent Office's unofficial historian and Editor in Chief of the Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society (JPTOS) from 1936 to 1942. Some of his most well-known contributions to the field of mathematics focused on the study of perfect squares and the writings of Descartes.

Federico is credited for providing the quotation said to underlie the scope of patentable subject matter under United States law when he testified before a House subcommittee in 1951 that "under section 101 a person may have invented a machine or manufacture, which may include anything under the sun that is made by man," so long as it satisfies the requirements of the patent statute. This testimony was later quoted by the United States Supreme Court when the Court held in 1980 that living organisms were proper subject matter for patents. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has since ruled that US patent protection does not extend to "Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas."

Judge Giles S. Rich of the Federal Circuit made these eulogistic remarks about Federico in a JPTOS article published shortly after Pat's death: Pat Federico was the ideal public servant. Politicians may come and politicians may go and in the process get most of the publicity in governmental affairs, but it is people like Pat who make government work. It was my privilege and greatly to my benefit to come to know Pat some thirty-four years ago, to have worked with him on a couple of lengthy legislative projects, and to have remained in touch with him throughout the rest of his fruitful life.

The Federico Award The Patent and Trademark Office Society has given an annual award in his namesake, the Pasquale J. Federico Memorial Award, which is, according to the official website of the award, "intended to recognize outstanding contributions to the Patent and Trademark Systems of the United States of America". Previous award recipients include Stephen Kunin, Nicholas Godici, Paul Michel, Donald Banner, Charles E. Van Horn, Pauline Newman, C. Marshall Dann, Herbert Wamsley, Helen Wilson Nies, Mike Kirk, Tom Arnold, Howard T. Markey, Rene D. Tegtmeyer, Isaac Fleischmann, Anne Chasser, Raymond Chen, John Whealan, Mark Lemley, Bernard J. Knight, Teresa Stanek Rea, Randall Rader and Deborah Cohn.