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Full-Text Articles in Law
Introduction: The Defend Trade Secrets Act Of 2015, Christopher B. Seaman
Introduction: The Defend Trade Secrets Act Of 2015, Christopher B. Seaman
Christopher B. Seaman
This is an introduction to a Roundtable on the Defend Trade Secrets Act published by the Washington and Lee Law Review Online in 2015.
Introduction: The Defend Trade Secrets Act Of 2015, Christopher B. Seaman
Introduction: The Defend Trade Secrets Act Of 2015, Christopher B. Seaman
Christopher B. Seaman
This is an introduction to a Roundtable on the Defend Trade Secrets Act published by the Washington and Lee Law Review Online in 2015.
Best Mode Trade Secrets, Brian J. Love, Christopher B. Seaman
Best Mode Trade Secrets, Brian J. Love, Christopher B. Seaman
Christopher B. Seaman
Trade secrecy and patent rights traditionally have been considered mutually exclusive. Trade secret rights are premised on secrecy. Patent rights, on the other hand, require public disclosure. Absent a sufficiently detailed description of the invention, patents are invalid. However, with the passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”) last fall, this once black-and-white distinction may melt into something a little more gray. Now, an inventor’s failure to disclose in her patent the preferred method for carrying out the invention — the so-called “best mode” — will no longer invalidate her patent rights or otherwise render them unenforceable. In this …
Willful Patent Infringement And Enhanced Damages After In Re Seagate: An Empirical Study, Christopher B. Seaman
Willful Patent Infringement And Enhanced Damages After In Re Seagate: An Empirical Study, Christopher B. Seaman
Christopher B. Seaman
Willful patent infringement is a critical issue in patent litigation, as it can result in an award of up to treble (enhanced) damages. In a 2007 decision, In re Seagate, the Federal Circuit significantly altered the standard governing willful infringement by requiring the patentee to prove at least "objective recklessness" by the accused infringer. Many observers predicted that this heightened standard would result in far fewer willfulness findings and enhanced damage awards. To date, however, there has been no comprehensive empirical study of Seagate's actual impact in patent litigation. This Article fills that gap by analyzing six years of district …
The Changing Damages Regime: Reasonable Royalties After Lucent And Willful Infringement And Enhanced Damages After Seagate, Christopher B. Seaman
The Changing Damages Regime: Reasonable Royalties After Lucent And Willful Infringement And Enhanced Damages After Seagate, Christopher B. Seaman
Christopher B. Seaman
No abstract provided.
Reconsidering The Georgia-Pacific Standard For Reasonable Royalty Patent Damages, Christopher B. Seaman
Reconsidering The Georgia-Pacific Standard For Reasonable Royalty Patent Damages, Christopher B. Seaman
Christopher B. Seaman
Determining damages for infringement is one of the most important—and controversial—issues in current patent litigation. The current fifteen-factor Georgia-Pacific standard for determining a reasonable royalty has become increasingly difficult for juries to apply in patent disputes involving complex, high-technology products, resulting in unpredictable damage awards that tend to overcompensate patentees. This Article proposes a more manageable alternative to Georgia-Pacific when an acceptable noninfringing substitute for the patented technology exists. Specifically, in a hypothetical bargain for a patent license, both economic and negotiation theory explain that a rational patent licensor would agree to pay only the costs it would incur to …