Law Commons^™

The Patent Cooperation Treaty: At The Center Of The International Patent System, Jay Erstling

Faculty Scholarship

In view of the fact that the PCT is composed of almost 130 countries and that more than 100 national and regional patent offices, as well as WIPO itself, perform PCT functions, it is remarkable that the system operates so smoothly and continues to gain momentum. Perhaps the system’s greatest strength comes from the immense diversity of legal, linguistic, and national cultures that constitute the PCT. While the system has served to harmonize divergent practices, it has also been obliged to accommodate to the sometimes inflexible peculiarities of national law and procedure. The PCT’s ability to strike a balance between …

One For All: The Problem Of Uniformity Cost In Intellectual Property Law, Michael W. Carroll

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Intellectual property law protects the owner of each patented invention or copyrighted work of authorship with a largely uniform set of exclusive rights. In the modern context, it is clear that innovators' needs for intellectual property protection vary substantially across industries and among types of innovation. Applying a socially costly, uniform solution to problems of differing magnitudes means that the law necessarily imposes uniformity cost by underprotecting those who invest in certain costly innovations and overprotecting those with low innovation costs or access to alternative appropriability mechanisms.

This Article argues that reducing uniformity cost is the central problem for intellectual …

The Study Of Intellectual Property At The William S. Boyd School Of Law, Mary Lafrance

Scholarly Works

This article discusses the intellectual property program at William S. Boyd School of Law.