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Full-Text Articles in Law
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 …
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 …