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Collusion And Collective Action In The Patent System: A Proposal For Patent Bounties, John R. Thomas
Collusion And Collective Action In The Patent System: A Proposal For Patent Bounties, John R. Thomas
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Persistent commentary contends that the Patent Office is issuing patents that appropriate public domain concepts at an alarming frequency. Complaints of low patent quality enjoy growing resonance with regard to business methods, computer software, and other inventions for which patents were not traditionally sought. In this article, Professor Jay Thomas explains how the judiciary's lenient view of patentable subject matter and utility standards, along with miserly congressional funding policies, have rendered the Patent Office an increasingly porous agency. Professor Thomas next reviews existing proposals for improving patent quality, including the conventional wisdom that adoption of an opposition system will contribute …
Challenges Of The New Economy: Issues At The Intersection Of Antitrust And Intellectual Property, Robert Pitofsky
Challenges Of The New Economy: Issues At The Intersection Of Antitrust And Intellectual Property, Robert Pitofsky
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
There is wide agreement that the last decade or so has presented an unusually lively and challenging period for antitrust analysis. Among many reasons we can point to are deregulation and problems of transition to a free market (telecommunications and electricity production offer leading examples), developments in procedural cooperation and possible substantive convergence in response to the increasing globalization of competition and enforcement approaches, and priorities in addressing an unprecedented merger wave. An additional challenge involves the application of established antitrust principles to the growing high-tech sector of the economy. It is that application of antitrust law to the new …
Antitrust And Intellectual Property: Unresolved Issues At The Heart Of The New Economy, Robert Pitofsky
Antitrust And Intellectual Property: Unresolved Issues At The Heart Of The New Economy, Robert Pitofsky
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The New Economy differs in degree rather than kind from the "old" economy. Part II of this discussion examines the key differences that define the New Economy. Part Ill turns to several implications of those differences as they pertain to antitrust enforcement. I argue that the differences do not justify sweeping generalizations that antitrust enforcement has no place in the New Economy, but do require antitrust enforcement to make adjustments and exercise sensitivity towards intellectual property issues on a case-by-case basis. The goal of a coherent overall competition policy, in deciding both what conduct to enforce against and what remedies …
Fair Use Infrastructure For Rights Management Systems, Dan L. Burk, Julie E. Cohen
Fair Use Infrastructure For Rights Management Systems, Dan L. Burk, Julie E. Cohen
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In this paper, we consider whether rights management systems can be supported by legal and institutional infrastructures that enable appropriate public access to the works secured by these technologies. We focus primarily on the design challenges posed by the fair use doctrine, which historically has played a central role in preserving such access. Throughout the paper, however, we also use the term "fair use" to refer more generally to the variety of limiting doctrines within copyright law that serve this goal. We begin in Part II by reviewing the contours of the fair use doctrine and the legal and policy …
Patent Scope And Innovation In The Software Industry, Julie E. Cohen, Mark A. Lemley
Patent Scope And Innovation In The Software Industry, Julie E. Cohen, Mark A. Lemley
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Software patents have received a great deal of attention in the academic literature. Unfortunately, most of that attention has been devoted to the problem of whether software is or should be patentable subject matter. With roughly eighty thousand software patents already issued, and the Federal Circuit endorsing patentability without qualification, those questions are for the history books. The more pressing questions now concern the scope to be accorded software patents. In this Article, we examine the implications of some traditional patent law doctrines for innovation in the software industry. We argue that patent law needs some refinement if it is …