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Articles 31 - 60 of 86
Full-Text Articles in Law
No License, No Problem – Is Qualcomm’S Ninth Circuit Antitrust Victory A Patent Exhaustion Defeat?, Jorge L. Contreras, Jorge L. Contreras
No License, No Problem – Is Qualcomm’S Ninth Circuit Antitrust Victory A Patent Exhaustion Defeat?, Jorge L. Contreras, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
The Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in FTC v. Qualcomm (9th Cir., Aug. 11, 2020) is generally viewed as a resounding victory for Qualcomm. But in praising Qualcomm’s egalitarian approach toward rival chip makers, the Ninth Circuit points out that instead of granting licenses to these rivals, Qualcomm merely “declines to enforce its patents” against them “even though they practice Qualcomm’s patents”. As such, the Ninth Circuit states that Qualcomm’s “policy toward rival chipmakers could be characterized as ‘no license, no problem’”. Yet, from the standpoint of patent exhaustion, this approach could actually be a very big problem, not only for …
Legal Terms Of Use And Public Genealogy Websites, Jorge L. Contreras, Kyle Schultz, Craig Teerlink, Tim Maness, Laurence Meyer, Lisa Cannon-Albright
Legal Terms Of Use And Public Genealogy Websites, Jorge L. Contreras, Kyle Schultz, Craig Teerlink, Tim Maness, Laurence Meyer, Lisa Cannon-Albright
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Public genealogy websites, to which individuals upload family history, genealogy, and sometimes individual genetic data, have been used in an increasing number of public health, epidemiological, and genetic studies. Yet there is little awareness among researchers of the legal rules that govern the use of these online resources. We analyzed the online Terms of Use (TOU) applicable to 17 popular genealogy websites and found that none of them expressly permit scientific research, while at least 13 contain restrictions that may limit or prohibit scientific research using data obtained from those sites. In order to ensure that researchers who use genealogy …
Pledging Intellectual Property For Covid-19, Jorge L. Contreras
Pledging Intellectual Property For Covid-19, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
COVID-19 differs from other recent public health crises with respect to its sudden onset, its rapid spread, the lack of any known vaccine or cure and resulting shortages of critical medical equipment. The convergence of these factors has prompted both governments and IPR holders around the world to seek ways to increase the availability of IPR necessary to combat the pandemic. Governmental compulsory licensing, IPR pools and voluntary IPR pledges have all been used in the past, though in situations that differ in important respects from the COVID-19 pandemic. Each is designed to result, to a greater or lesser degree, …
Will China's New Anti-Suit Injunctions Shift The Balance Of Global Frand Litigation?, Jorge L. Contreras
Will China's New Anti-Suit Injunctions Shift The Balance Of Global Frand Litigation?, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
By issuing anti-suit injunctions (ASIs) in Conversant v. Huawei and InterDigital v. Xiaomi in late 2020, Chinese courts have signaled a new willingness to vie for jurisdictional authority in global battles over standard-essential patents and FRAND licensing. While the Supreme People’s Court in Conversant largely followed the pattern of US and UK courts that have issued ASIs in similar cases, the ruling of the Wuhan court in InterDigital is far broader in two major respects. First, its geographic scope is not limited to the country in which InterDigital sought injunctive relief (India), but extends to all jurisdictions in the world. …
Financial Terms In License Agreements, Jorge L. Contreras
Financial Terms In License Agreements, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
This chapter in the forthcoming casebook Intellectual Property Licensing and Transactions: Theory and Practice (2020, forthcoming), discusses the financial terms of IP licensing agreements including fixed payments, running royalties, sublicensing income, milestone payments, equity compensation and cost reimbursement, as well as most-favored and audit clauses. Numerous areas of recent controversy are addressed including the establishment of royalty rates through the entire market value rule (EMVR) versus the smallest salable patent practicing unit (SSPPU) rule, royalties for bundled rights, rules of thumb discredited by the courts, royalty escalation clauses and more. Examples are drawn primarily from biotechnology, high-tech and copyright licensing …
First Sale And Exhaustion, Jorge L. Contreras
First Sale And Exhaustion, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
This chapter in the forthcoming case book "Intellectual Property Licensing and Transactions: Theory and Practice" addresses issues of first sale and exhaustion for licensing transactions involving patents, copyrights and trademarks. Among the issues considered are licensing versus sale of software, patent exhaustion, post-sale restrictions, international exhaustion and gray market imports.
U.S. Federal Genomic Data Release And Access Policies, Jorge L. Contreras
U.S. Federal Genomic Data Release And Access Policies, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Researchers today have access to a vast aggregation of human and nonhuman genomic data, largely on an open access basis. According to the Joint Genome Institute’s Genomes OnLine Database (GOLD), data from more than 40,000 sequencing projects around the world, representing more than 375,000 different organisms, were publicly available to researchers as of July 2020. The availability of this tremendous public resource is due, in large part, to the data release policies developed a quarter century ago, toward the beginning of the Human Genome Project (HGP), which have been carried forward, in modified form, to the present. These policies impose …
Antitrust And Competition Issues, Jorge L. Contreras
Antitrust And Competition Issues, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
This Chapter offers a broad overview of the impact of U.S. antitrust laws on IP licensing and transactions. A basic understanding of antitrust law is critical to the analysis of IP licensing arrangements, whether concerning patents, copyrights or trademarks. This chapter offers a summary of the antitrust doctrines that arise frequently in IP and technology-focused transactions — price fixing and market allocation, resale price maintenance, tying, monopolization, refusals to deal, standard setting and pay-for-delay settlements, with coverage of the major cases and enforcement agency guidance. Antitrust issues also play a role in the analysis of joint ventures, which are discussed …
Intellectual Property Rights And The Rule Of Law, Jorge L. Contreras
Intellectual Property Rights And The Rule Of Law, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
The subject of this conference is the “Rule of Law”, so I would like to address my opening comments to a trending narrative that casts opposition to the demands of patent holders as a form of lawlessness. This narrative specifically takes aim at a practice that has been termed “efficient infringement” – the idea that a firm may rationally decide to infringe patents either because it will be too costly for the patent holder to enforce its rights in court, or because it is happy to take its chances in court, where an asserted patent may be invalidated and where …
Sometimes Frand Does Mean License-To-All, Jorge L. Contreras
Sometimes Frand Does Mean License-To-All, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
FRAND commitments are creations of written policy documents and contract law. Accordingly, the existence of a “License to All” obligation under a FRAND commitment must arise from the relevant policy language. Numerous SDO policies expressly impose “License to All” requirements. Some SDO policies are ambiguous with respect to this requirement and such ambiguities should be resolved based on an examination of extrinsic evidence including the intentions of policy drafters, the shared understandings of SDO participants, and the historical precedents for such policies. In many cases, an examination of these factors should lead to the conclusion that “License to All” is, …
Intellectual Property Pools And Aggregation, Jorge L. Contreras
Intellectual Property Pools And Aggregation, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
This chapter in the forthcoming case book "Intellectual Property Licensing and Transactions: Theory and Practice" covers IP pooling, with an emphasis on patents. It begins with a discussion of the theoretical benefit of pooling, including efficiency gains and the avoidance of blocking positions, thickets and anti-commons. It then addresses antitrust analysis of pooling transactions from Standard Oil (Indiana) v. United States (U.S. 1931) through the 2017 DOJ-FTC Antitrust Guidelines. The chapter then turns to pools created to facilitate standard-setting, including the MPEG-2 and 3GPP Pools, and discusses the concept of complementarity and essentiality of pooled assets. It concludes with brief …
It’S Anti-Suit Injunctions All The Way Down – The Strange New Realities Of International Litigation Over Standards-Essential Patents, Jorge L. Contreras
It’S Anti-Suit Injunctions All The Way Down – The Strange New Realities Of International Litigation Over Standards-Essential Patents, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Today’s markets for technology products — from smartphones to home appliances to automobiles — are inherently global. This is especially true of products that embody technical standards — protocols like 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB that are covered by hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of patents (so-called “standards-essential patents” or “SEPs”). Given the global scope and size of these markets, it is not surprising that patent litigation over standardized products is often conducted on a global scale. This article looks at an increasingly important aspect of these global standards wars: the ability of a court in one jurisdiction to …
Association For Molecular Pathology V. Myriad Genetics: A Critical Reassessment, Jorge L. Contreras
Association For Molecular Pathology V. Myriad Genetics: A Critical Reassessment, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics is part of the Court’s recent quartet of patent eligibility decisions, which also includes Bilski v. Kappos, Mayo v. Prometheus and Alice v. CLS Bank. Each of these decisions has significantly shaped the contours of patent eligibility under Section 101 of the Patent Act in ways that have been both applauded and criticized. The Myriad case, however, was significant beyond its impact on Sec-tion 101 jurisprudence. Perhaps one of the most remarkable things about Myriad is that it meant so many different things to so many different …
Chapter 20 – Technical Standards: Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (Frand) Licensing, Jorge L. Contreras
Chapter 20 – Technical Standards: Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (Frand) Licensing, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
This chapter in the forthcoming case book "Intellectual Property Licensing and Transactions" covers licensing transactions involving standards-essential patents (SEPs), including recent legal developments regarding the disclosure (and concealment) of SEPs, fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) royalty rates, non-discriminatory licensing, the availability of injunctive relief for FRAND-encumbered patents, and transfers of FRAND commitments, as well as specific SDO policy clauses and license text addressing each of these issues.
Patent Fakes: How Fraudulent Inventions Threaten Public Health, Innovation, And The Economy, Jorge L. Contreras
Patent Fakes: How Fraudulent Inventions Threaten Public Health, Innovation, And The Economy, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Because there is no practical way for patent examiners to verify that the inventions claimed in patent applications actually work, a surprising number of patents are issued for inventions that have turned out to be imaginary, fraudulent or otherwise non-existent. What's more, as illustrated by the recent attempt by Labrador Diagnostics to assert a patent acquired from now-defunct Theranos against firms developing testing kits for COVID-19, these patents present a genuine threat to businesses operating in important sectors of the economy. While it is unrealistic to expect patent examiners to verify the functionality of every claimed invention, there are a …
The Nci Cancer Moonshot Public Access And Data Sharing (Pads) Policy – Initial Assessment And Implications, Jorge L. Contreras, Tammy Frisby
The Nci Cancer Moonshot Public Access And Data Sharing (Pads) Policy – Initial Assessment And Implications, Jorge L. Contreras, Tammy Frisby
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Since 2013, federal research-funding agencies have been required to develop and implement broad data sharing policies. Yet agencies today continue to grapple with the mechanisms necessary to enable the sharing of a wide range of data types, from genomic and other -omics data to clinical and pharmacological data to survey and qualitative data. In 2016, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched the ambitious $1.8 billion Cancer Moonshot Program, which included a new Public Access and Data Sharing (PADS) Policy applicable to funding applications submitted on or after October 1, 2017. The PADS Policy encourages the immediate public release of published …
Mpeg La’S Use Of A Patent Pool To Solve The Crispr Industry’S Licensing Problems, Patrick Neville
Mpeg La’S Use Of A Patent Pool To Solve The Crispr Industry’S Licensing Problems, Patrick Neville
Utah Law Review
Since 2012, CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology has revolutionized how scientists approach gene editing. CRISPR allows for easier modification and alteration of the genome. This technology has potential applications ranging from correcting genetic defects to the treatment and prevention of diseases—CRISPR’s potential upside is unquestionable. However, CRISPR’s current patent landscape presents a variety of roadblocks for research, innovation, and profit. This Note discusses the potential use of a patent pool to alleviate some of these roadblocks. This Note begins with a discussion of the independent administrative body attempting to create such a patent pool, MPEG LA, before …
The Technical Standardization Ecosystem And Institutional Decision Making: The Case Of Intellectual Property Rights Policies, Justus Baron, Jorge L. Contreras, Martin Husovec, Pierre Larouche, Nikolaus Thumm
The Technical Standardization Ecosystem And Institutional Decision Making: The Case Of Intellectual Property Rights Policies, Justus Baron, Jorge L. Contreras, Martin Husovec, Pierre Larouche, Nikolaus Thumm
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
In this paper, we analyze decision making on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policies in the standardization ecosystem. While a large literature has studied IPR policies of Standard Developing Organizations (SDOs), we contribute a more rigorous analysis of how these IPR policies are shaped by the interdependencies between SDOs and between SDOs and a variety of stakeholders. While SDO stakeholders often have opposing policy preferences, they are tied together by non-generic complementarities and a joint interest in the overall performance of the standardization system, which are constitutive characteristics of an ecosystem. The standardization ecosystem is characterized by widely shared institutional norms, …
Research And Repair: Expanding Exceptions To Patent Infringement In Response To A Pandemic, Jorge L. Contreras
Research And Repair: Expanding Exceptions To Patent Infringement In Response To A Pandemic, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
The doctrinal areas on which this essay focuses are two longstanding but narrow exemptions from patent infringement: one that permits scientific research, and one that permits the owner of a patented device to repair it. Though distinct at first glance, both of these doctrines act to permit activity that would otherwise be considered patent infringement. They are exceptions to the exclusivity that the law grants to patent holders – particularly the right to “make” a patented article and, to a lesser degree, to “use” it, and for this reason they are particularly salient when patents may impact critical lifesaving technologies. …
Is Biopharma Ready For The Standards Wars?, Jorge L. Contreras
Is Biopharma Ready For The Standards Wars?, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
This symposium contribution sheds new light on Momenta v. Amphastar, a recent federal case in which issues relating to standardization and patent disclosure that have previously been observed in the semiconductor, computing and telecommunications sectors found their way into a dispute between two biosimilar manufacturers. One such manufacturer, Momenta, participated in the development of a standard for testing the purity of generic enoxaparin under the auspices of the United States Pharmacopeial Convention, but failed to disclose that it had applied for a patent on the testing method. When Momenta later sued Amphastar for infringement based on its use of that …
Brief Of Amicus Curiae Professor Jorge L. Contreras In Support Of Appellee And Affirmance In Ftc V. Qualcomm, Jorge L. Contreras
Brief Of Amicus Curiae Professor Jorge L. Contreras In Support Of Appellee And Affirmance In Ftc V. Qualcomm, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Qualcomm participated in the development of 3G and 4G wireless telecommunication standards under the auspices of two SDOs, the Telecommunications Industry Association (“TIA”) and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (“ATIS”). Each of these SDOs had adopted intellectual property rights policies (IPR Policies) that required their participants to grant licenses of SEPs to implementers of their standards on FRAND terms. Yet, over the course of several years, Qualcomm refused to license its SEPs to numerous actual and potential modem chip rivals including MediaTek, Project Dragonfly (a joint venture of NTT DoCoMo, Samsung and several Japanese manufacturers), Samsung, VIA Telecom, Intel, …
The Patentability Of Genetic Therapies: Car-T And Medical Treatment Exclusions Around The World, Luis Gil Abinader, Jorge L. Contreras
The Patentability Of Genetic Therapies: Car-T And Medical Treatment Exclusions Around The World, Luis Gil Abinader, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
More than eighty countries, including the members of the European Patent Convention, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, China, Japan, and India, currently exclude or limit the patentability of methods of medical treatment. CAR-T and other recent gene and cell therapies, which operate based on the extraction of genetic or cellular material from a patient, the alteration of such material, and the reintroduction of such material to the patient’s body, should, under most or all of these legal regimes, be considered medical treatments that are thus excluded from patentability, or as to which patent enforcement is limited. Accordingly, we urge …
Is The Supreme Court’S Patentable Subject Matter Test Overly Ambiguous? An Empirical Test, Jason D. Reinecke
Is The Supreme Court’S Patentable Subject Matter Test Overly Ambiguous? An Empirical Test, Jason D. Reinecke
Utah Law Review
This Article shows that the new two-step patent-eligibility test is not as unadministrable as at least its most ardent critics have suggested. More research is necessary to ascertain how much better the attorneys would have predicted court outcomes had they spent more time on their predictions and had access to more information.
Sui-Genericide, Jorge L. Contreras
Sui-Genericide, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Generic terms – those that describe a general class of goods or services – are not eligible for trademark protection. Firms have historically gone to great lengths to prevent their trademarks from becoming generic – a fate often referred to as genericide. But in a few rare cases, firms have voluntarily declared certain terms that they have created to be generic, a phenomenon that I refer to as “sui-genericide”. This article explores the little-discussed phenomenon of sui-genericide, both its origins in government-sponsored programs of the mid-twentieth century and its most recent incarnation in the area of technical interoperability standards. Though …
Making The Rules: The Governance Of Standard Development Organizations And Their Policies On Intellectual Property Rights, Justus Baron, Jorge L. Contreras, Martin Husovec, Pierre Larouche, Nikolaus Thumm
Making The Rules: The Governance Of Standard Development Organizations And Their Policies On Intellectual Property Rights, Justus Baron, Jorge L. Contreras, Martin Husovec, Pierre Larouche, Nikolaus Thumm
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the governance of standard development organizations (SDOs), with a particular emphasis on organizations developing standards for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The analysis is based on 17 SDO case studies, a survey of SDO stakeholders, an expert workshop, and a comprehensive review of the legal and economic literature. The study considers the external factors conditioning SDO decision making on rules and procedures, including binding legal requirements, government influence, the network of cooperative relationships with other SDOs and related organizations, and competitive forces. SDO decision-making is also shaped by internal factors, such as the …
Private Law, Conflict Of Laws, And A Lex Mercatoria Of Standards-Development Organizations, Jorge L. Contreras
Private Law, Conflict Of Laws, And A Lex Mercatoria Of Standards-Development Organizations, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Technical standards created by industry standards-development organizations (SDOs) enable interoperability among products manufactured by different vendors. Over the years, SDOs have developed policies to reduce the risk that SDO participants holding patents covering the SDO’s standards will disrupt or hinder the development and deployment of these standards. These policies, including commitments to license standards-essential patents (SEPs) on terms that are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND), gain transnational application given the international character of SDO activities and are most effectively interpreted and applied on the basis of private law (contractual) principles. However, SDO policies are typically embodied in an SDO’s governing …
Understanding "Balance" Requirements For Standards-Development Organizations, Jorge L. Contreras
Understanding "Balance" Requirements For Standards-Development Organizations, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Most technical standards-development organizations (SDOs) have adopted internal policies embodying “due process” criteria such openness, balance of interest, consensus decision making and appeals. Yet these criteria lack a generally-accepted definition and the manner in which they are implemented varies among SDOs. Recently, there has been a renewed interest in the principle that SDOs should ensure a balance of interests among their stakeholders. This article explores the origins and meaning of the balance requirement for SDOs. In doing so, it identifies four “tiers” of balance requirements, ranging from those required of all SDOs under applicable antitrust law, to those required of …
Frand Royalties, Anti-Suit Injunctions And The Global Race To The Bottom In Disputes Over Standards-Essential Patents, Jorge L. Contreras
Frand Royalties, Anti-Suit Injunctions And The Global Race To The Bottom In Disputes Over Standards-Essential Patents, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
While national courts have long exercised extraterritorial authority over domestic entities whose conduct abroad is prohibited in the domestic jurisdiction, national courts have recently begun to use disputes over domestic patent rights as vehicles for shaping the global business arrangements of private parties even absent any violation of national law. This phenomenon has become particularly pronounced in the context of “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” (FRAND) licenses of patents that are essential to the manufacture and sale of standardized products. This essay explores the increasing extraterritorial effect of national judicial decisions on licenses for standards-essential patents, including recent instances in which …
#Squadgoals: A Response To Seth Waxman, Amelia Rinehart
#Squadgoals: A Response To Seth Waxman, Amelia Rinehart
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Former Solicitor General Seth Waxman’s recent remarks, framing our current age of patent law in the Supreme Court as “interesting times,” unquestionably captures the exhilaration of an active Supreme Court in this area of the law. Waxman knows his way around patent cases decided by the Supreme Court — he presented arguments in four of the six patent cases in the 2016 Term — but he also has an extensive appellate practice before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”), which has exclusive appellate jurisdiction over patent cases. Given his substantial experience in patent appellate litigation, Waxman …
The False Promise Of Health Data Ownership, Jorge L. Contreras
The False Promise Of Health Data Ownership, Jorge L. Contreras
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
In recent years there have been increasing calls by patient advocates, health law scholars and would-be data intermediaries to recognize personal property interests in individual health information (IHI). While the propertization of IHI appeals to notions of individual autonomy, privacy and distributive justice, the implementation of a workable property system for IHI presents significant challenges. This essay addresses the issues surrounding the propertization of IHI from a property law perspective. It first observes that IHI does not fit recognized judicial criteria for recognition as personal property, as IHI defies convenient definition, is difficult to possess exclusively, and lacks justifications for …