Law Commons^™

Ebay And The Blackberry®: A Media Coverage Case Study, Lisa A. Dolak, Blaine T. Bettinger

Lisa A Dolak

Patent owners, potential infringers, and the courts will continue to work through the implications of the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. for some time. We look back, however, at media coverage relating to injunctions, “trolls,” and the U.S. patent system generally, in the months preceding the Court’s decision. We show that although eBay featured prominently in news and editorial coverage while it was pending at the Court, it could not compete in the media with another patent case pending at the same time: the case that threatened to darken the Blackberry®. Further, we note that …

The United States Patent System In The Media Mirror, Lisa A. Dolak, Blaine T. Bettinger

Lisa A Dolak

The last several years have witnessed a flurry of transformative patent reform activity. The Supreme Court has issued key rulings affecting the availability of injunctive and declaratory relief, revised the law of obviousness, and limited the extraterritorial reach of the patent act. Now Congress stands poised to ratify the most significant and far-reaching overhaul of the patent system in at least 45 years.

In this study, we analyzed major newspaper coverage of the patent system from January 1, 2005 through June 30, 2007 to systematically assess how the press portrayed the U.S. patent system. Our examination revealed a negative overall …