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Full-Text Articles in Law
Regulatory Property: The New Ip, Robin C. Feldman
Regulatory Property: The New Ip, Robin C. Feldman
Robin C Feldman
Do Patent Licensing Demands Mean Innovation?, Robin C. Feldman, Mark A. Lemley
Do Patent Licensing Demands Mean Innovation?, Robin C. Feldman, Mark A. Lemley
Robin C Feldman
Patent Demands & Startup Companies: The View From The Venture Capital Community, Robin C. Feldman
Patent Demands & Startup Companies: The View From The Venture Capital Community, Robin C. Feldman
Robin C Feldman
A Conversation On Judicial Decision-Making, Robin Feldman
A Conversation On Judicial Decision-Making, Robin Feldman
Robin C Feldman
Both breathtakingly broad and minutely particular, the doctrine of patentable subject matter asks us to consider which innovations are of the type for which we might grant protection. Do we include living creatures, for example, or genes? Are computer algorithms included, and just what is an algorithm anyway? These are the types of questions that the Supreme Court has considered in a number of recent cases on patentable subject matter.
Looking closely at the recent cases, a fascinating conversation emerges between the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit. It is a conversation not just about the nature of patents, but …
Intellectual Property Wrongs, Robin Feldman
Intellectual Property Wrongs, Robin Feldman
Robin C Feldman
Intellectual property has become a pervasive presence in society. Seeping into every nook and cranny of American life, intellectual property casts a protective haze over everything from the words of an email to the sequence of genes. Increasingly, these rights are being pressed into the service of schemes that have little to do with the advancement of societal goals and much to do with societal waste. What do we, as a society, do when the rights that we have created with such lofty goals and noble heart are diverted toward less admirable pursuits, that is, when IP rights become the …
The Giants Among Us, Robin Feldman, Thomas Ewing
The Giants Among Us, Robin Feldman, Thomas Ewing
Robin C Feldman
The patent world is undergoing a change of seismic proportions. A small number of entities have quietly amassed vast treasuries of patents. These are not the typical patent trolls that we have come to expect. Rather, these entities have participants such Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, the World Bank, and non-profit institutions. The largest and most secretive of these has accumulated a staggering 30,000-60,000 patents.
Investing thousands of hours of research and using publicly available sources, we pieced together a detailed picture of these giants and their activities. We consider the potential positive effects, including facilitating rewards for forgotten inventors, creating …
Plain Language Patents, Robin C. Feldman
Plain Language Patents, Robin C. Feldman
Robin C Feldman
Law is a process of Bounded Adaptation. The law that exists at any given moment is constantly driven to adapt to changing circumstances within the framework of what has gone before. The boundaries of that framework are policed by the necessity of articulating an interpretation in a way that gains general acceptance. It is the need to effectively articulate a common logic that mitigates the distortion of personal perspective.
This process of Bounded Adaptation cannot proceed effectively without an adequately structured dialogue that will promote the flow of information and analysis. Nowhere is this dialogue more challenging than at the …
Law's Misguided Love Affair With Science, Robin Feldman
Law's Misguided Love Affair With Science, Robin Feldman
Robin C Feldman
The allure of science has always captivated members of the legal profession. Its siren’s song has followed us throughout much of American legal history. We look to science to rescue us from the experience of uncertainty and the discomfort of difficult legal decisions, and we are constantly disappointed.
The notion of what constitutes science and what it would take to make law more scientific varies across time. What does not vary is our constant return to the well. We are constantly seduced into believing that some new science will provide answers to law’s dilemmas, and we are constantly disappointed.
This …
Differing Shades Of Meaning, Robin C. Feldman
Differing Shades Of Meaning, Robin C. Feldman
Robin C Feldman
The relationship between patent law and antitrust law has challenged legal minds since the emergence of antitrust law in the late 19th century. In reductionist form, the two concepts pose a natural contradiction: One encourages monopoly while the other restricts it. To avoid uncomfortable dissonance, the trend across time has been to try to harmonize patent and antitrust law. In particular, harmonization efforts in recent decades have led Congress and the courts to engage in a series of attempts, some aborted and some half-formed, to graft antitrust doctrines onto patent law. These efforts have failed to resolve the conflicts.
This …