Law Commons^™

Patenting The Unexplained, Sean B. Seymore

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

It is a bedrock principle of patent law that an inventor need not understand how or why an invention works. The patent statute simply requires that the inventor explain how to make and use the invention. But explaining how to make and use something without understanding how or why it works yields patents with uninformative disclosures. Their teaching function is limited; one who wants to understand or figure out the underlying scientific principles must turn elsewhere. This limited disclosure rule does not align with the norms of science and tends to make patent documents a less robust form of technical …

Exploring The Interfaces Between Big Data And Intellectual Property Law, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article reviews the application of several IP rights (copyright, patent, sui generis database right, data exclusivity and trade secret) to Big Data. Beyond the protection of software used to collect and process Big Data corpora, copyright’s traditional role is challenged by the relatively unstructured nature of the non-relational (noSQL) databases typical of Big Data corpora. This also impacts the application of the EU sui generis right in databases. Misappropriation (tort-based) or anti-parasitic behaviour protection might apply, where available, to data generated by AI systems that has high but short-lived value. Copyright in material contained in Big Data corpora must …

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 …

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 …

Intellectual Property Harms: A Paradigm For The Twenty-First Century, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This short essay is part of a larger book project that investigates how contemporary intellectual property debates, especially in the digital age, are taking place over less familiar terrain: fundamental rights and values. Its argument draws from the diverse, personal accounts of interviews from everyday creators and innovators and focuses on descriptions of harms and, as some say “abuses,” they suffer within their practicing communities. The harms are not described are the usual harms that intellectual property law is understood to prevent. Typically, intellectual property injuries are conceived in individual terms and as economic injuries. An infringer is a thief. …

State Immunity And The Patent Trial And Appeal Board, Tejas N. Narechania

Tejas N. Narechania

Grading Patent Remedies: Dependent Claims And Relative Infringement, Daniel Harris Brean

Daniel Harris Brean

Patent Enforcement In Cyberterritories, Daniel Harris Brean

Daniel Harris Brean