Law Commons^™

Competitive Patent Law, William Hubbard

All Faculty Scholarship

Can U.S. patent law help American businesses compete in global markets? In early 2011, President Barack Obama argued that, to obtain economic prosperity, the United States must "out-innovate . .. the rest of the world,"¹ and that patent reform is a "critical dimension[]" ² of this innovation agenda. Soon thereafter, Congress enacted the most sweeping reforms to U.S. patent law in more than half a century, contending that the changes will "give American inventors and innovators the 21st century patent system they need to compete."³ Surprisingly, no legal scholar has assessed whether patent reform is capable of making …

Access Copyright & Technology: Legal And Policy Issues In Education, Lisa Di Valentino

FIMS Presentations

Access Copyright is a collective organization representing the
copyright interests of publishers and creators. The collective offers
copyright licences that allow certain limited uses of works in the
collective's repertoire. The use of collective licences as part of
copyright management policy was common in post-secondary education
administration until 2010, when many universities opted out of a
contractual relationship with Access Copyright.

The growing movement towards online open access publishing and
Creative Commons public licensing has made information more widely
available without requiring payment and with fewer restrictions on
use. The addition of education to the list of fair dealing purposes …

Is It Time For A Rule 11 For The Patent Bar?, Ralph D. Clifford

Faculty Publications

The failure to require the patent bar to be completely candid in its dealings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) is one of the reasons behind the patent quality problem in the United States. Although PTO regulations impose a duty of candor on both the patent applicant and his or he attorney, this duty of disclosure is limited to matters already known by the parties. The regulations impose no duty to become educated about the technology that underlies a claimed invention. Indeed, there are rational reasons why a patent applicant might seek an uneducated attorney and order him …

The Competitive Advantage Of Weak Patents, William Hubbard

All Faculty Scholarship

Does U.S. patent law increase the competitiveness of U.S. firms in global markets? This Article argues that, contrary to the beliefs of many U.S. lawmakers, U.S. patent law currently undermines the ability of U.S. firms to compete in global markets because strong U.S. patent rights actually weaken an overlooked but critical determinant of U.S. competitiveness: rivalry among U.S. firms. Intense domestic rivalry drives firms to improve relentlessly, spawns related and supporting domestic industries, and encourages the domestic development of advanced factors of production—like specialized labor forces. U.S. patents restrict rivalry among foreign firms less because U.S. patents have little extraterritorial …

Improving (Software) Patent Quality Through The Administrative Process, Arti K. Rai

Faculty Scholarship

The available evidence indicates that patent quality, particularly in the area of software, needs improvement. This Article argues that even an agency as institutionally constrained as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) could implement a portfolio of pragmatic, cost-effective quality improvement strategies. The argument in favor of these strategies draws upon not only legal theory and doctrine but also new data from a PTO software examination unit with relatively strict practices. Strategies that resolve around Section 112 of the patent statute could usefully be deployed at the initial examination stage. Other strategies could be deployed within the new post-issuance …

Technological Cost As Law In Intellectual Property, Harry Surden

Publications

Changes in the scope of IP legal rights are generally thought to be linked to changes in positive law. This Article argues that shifts in the scope of IP laws are often driven by changes in technological feasibility and not by changes in positive law. Diminishing technological constraint is an under-acknowledged factor driving changes in substantive IP law.

More specifically, there are certain activities that are core to IP law. Such activities include, for example, the copying of creative works in copyright (e.g. duplicating books or music), or the manufacturing of products in patent law. Traditionally, IP legal theory has …

Panel Iii: Politics And The Public In Ip & Info Law Policy Making, Michael J. Burstein, Derek Khanna, Jessica D. Litman, Sherwin Siy, Richard S. Whitt

Other Publications

We have been moving gradually from the theoretical to the practical. Having examined the impact of critical legal studies ("CLS") in the academy and having discussed the intersection between scholarship and activism, we now turn to the nitty-gritty questions of how to actually enact change in intellectual property and information law and policy.

Patent Infringement As Criminal Conduct, Jacob S. Sherkow

Articles & Chapters

Criminal and civil law differ greatly in their use of the element of intent. The purposes of intent in each legal system are tailored to effectuate very different goals. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A., 131 S. Ct. 2060 (2011), however, imported a criminal concept of intent — willful blindness — into the statute for patent infringement, a civil offense, despite these differences. This importation of a criminal law concept of intent into the patent statute is novel and calls for examination. This Article compares the purposes behind intent in criminal law with the …