Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

3d Printing And Healthcare: Will Laws, Lawyers, And Companies Stand In The Way Of Patient Care?, Evan R. Youngstrom

Evan R. Youngstrom

Today, our society is on a precipice of significant advancement in healthcare because 3D printing will usher in the next generation of medicine. The next generation will be driven by customization, which will allow doctors to replace limbs and individualize drugs. However, the next generation will be without large pharmaceutical companies and their justifications for strong intellectual property rights. However, the current patent system (which is underpinned by a social tradeoff made from property incentives) is not flexible enough to cope with 3D printing’s rapid development. Very soon, the social tradeoff will no longer benefit society, so it must be …

Exhausting Patents, Wentong Zheng

Wentong Zheng

A bedrock principle of patent law — patent exhaustion — proclaims that an authorized sale of a patented article exhausts the patentee’s rights with respect to the article sold. Over one hundred and fifty years of case law, however, has produced two conflicting notions of patent exhaustion, one considering exhaustion to be mandatory regardless of whether the patentee subjects the sale to express patent restrictions, and another treating exhaustion as a default rule that applies only in unconditional sales. The uncertainty surrounding the patent exhaustion doctrine casts a significant legal cloud over patent licensing practices in the modern economy and …

How Much Fuel To Add To The Fire Of Genius? Some Questions About The Repair/Reconstruction Distinction In Patent Law , Arthur Gajarsa, Evelyn Aswad, Joseph Cianfrani

Evelyn Aswad

No abstract provided.

A Method For Reforming The Patent System, Peter Menell

Peter Menell

The principal recent studies of patent reform (NAS (2004), FTC (2003), Jaffe and Lerner (2004)) contend that a uniform system of patent protection must (or should) be available for "anything under the sun made by man" based upon one or more of the following premises: (1) the Patent Act requires this breadth and uniformity of treatment; (2) "discriminating" against any particular field of "technology" would be undesirable; (3) discrimination among technologies would present insurmountable boundary problems and could easily be circumvented through clever patent drafting; and (4) interest group politics stand in the way of excluding any subject matter classes …

The Supreme Assimilation Of Patent Law, Peter Lee

Peter Lee

Although tensions between universality and exceptionalism apply throughout law, they are particularly pronounced in patent law, a field that deals with highly technical subject matter. This Article explores these tensions by investigating an underappreciated descriptive theory of Supreme Court patent jurisprudence. Significantly extending previous scholarship, it argues that the Court’s recent decisions reflect a project of eliminating “patent exceptionalism” and assimilating patent doctrine to general legal principles (or, more precisely, to what the Court frames as general legal principles). Among other motivations, this trend responds to rather exceptional patent doctrine emanating from the Federal Circuit in areas as varied as …

E-Obviousness, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.

Glynn Lunney

As patents expand into e-commerce and methods of doing business more generally, both the uncertainty and the risk of unjustified market power that the present approach generates suggest a need to rethink our approach to nonobviousness. If courts fail to enforce the nonobviousness requirement and allow an individual to obtain a patent for simply implementing existing methods of doing business through a computer, even where only trivial technical difficulties are presented, entire e-markets might be handed over to patent holders with no concomitant public benefit. If courts attempt to enforce the nonobviousness requirement, but leave undefined the extent of the …

Patent Misuse And Antitrust: Rebirth Or False Dawn?, Daryl Lim

Daryl Lim

This Article examines how two recent cases, F.T.C. v. Actavis and Kimble v. Marvel Enterprises Inc. could affect both the equitable defense of patent misuse and the patent-antitrust interface more generally. It begins by tracing the history of patent misuse and its reformulation into an “antitrust-lite” doctrine by the Federal Circuit. This Article presents new empirical data confirming this reformulation, and unveils the surprising influence of the Seventh Circuit and the Chicago School on that reformulation. The Article then explores Actavis and Kimble. It explains why Actavis will catalyze more antitrust challenges when patent rights are exercised, and why it …

Frand V. Compulsory Licensing: The Lesser Of The Two Evils, Srividhya Ragavan

Srividhya Ragavan

No abstract provided.

The Right Not To Use In Property And Patent Law, Oskar Liivak, Eduardo M. Peñalver

Oskar Liivak

In Continental Paper Bag Co. v. Eastern Paper Bag Co., the Supreme Court held (1) that patent owners have an absolute right not to practice their patent and (2) that even these nonpracticing patent owners are entitled to the liberal use of injunctive relief against infringers. Both of these holdings have been very important to the viability of patent assertion entities, the so-called patent trolls. In eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., the Supreme Court softened the injunction rule. In this Article, we argue that Congress or the Court should reconsider Continental Paper Bag’s embrace of an absolute right not to …

Rethinking The Concept Of Exclusion In Patent Law, Oskar Liivak

Oskar Liivak

Patent law’s broad exclusionary rule is one of its defining features. It is unique within intellectual property as it prohibits acts of independent creation. Even if a second inventor had no connection or aid from an initial inventor, patent law allows the first inventor to stop the second. Even though a number of pressing problems can be traced to this rule, it remains untouchable; it is thought to be essential for incentivizing invention. But is it really our only choice? And why is it so different from our otherwise widespread reliance on free entry and competition in markets? The current …

Finding Invention, Oskar Liivak

Oskar Liivak

One of the biggest problems plaguing modern patent law is its inability to provide predictable and clear exclusive rights. We would improve clarity by simply following the patent statute and extending exclusion only to "the patented invention." That suggestion, as reasonable as it may sound, is actually quite radical to the dominant patent law orthodoxy. It is not even clear under the dominant patent law orthodoxy what it would mean to limit patent scope to the invention, but it is generally presumed that it must lead to unacceptably narrow patents. Thus, even if it provides clarity, the invention is thought …

Maintaining Competition In Copying: Narrowing The Scope Of Gene Patents, Oskar Liivak

Oskar Liivak

In supporting gene patents, the patent office, the courts and other supporters have assumed that gene discoveries are identical to traditional inventions and therefore the patent system should treat them as identical. In other words, they have assumed that the relatively broad claims that are used for traditional inventions are also appropriate for encouraging gene discovery. This article examines this assumption and finds that gene discoveries are critically different from traditional inventions and concludes that the patent system cannot treat them as identical.

As a doctrinal matter, this article applies the generally overlooked constitutional requirements of inventorship and originality and …

The Forgotten Originality Requirement: A Constitutional Hurdle For Gene Patents, Oskar Liivak

Oskar Liivak

Originality has always been a part of patent law. It bars patents that are obtained by copying from someone or from somewhere. Modern judicial interpretations of the patent act have ignored this second element of originality. But as originality is, at least arguably, a constitutional limit of the Patent and Copyright clause, the courts must interpret the patent act consistently to include originality. As a specific example, the paper focuses on patents claiming isolated and purified naturally-occurring gene sequences. The paper concludes that such patents are not original – they are instead just the result of copying – and thus …

The Experimental Use Exception To Patent Infringement: Do Universities Deserve Special Treatment?, Elizabeth A. Rowe

Elizabeth A Rowe

The experimental use exception is a common law exception to the patent-holder's exclusive right of use. It permits the use of another's patented device when such use is for philosophical inquiry, curiosity, or amusement. It has recently come under attack by many who consider it too narrow. They fear that the courts' "narrowing" of the experimental use exception will stifle research and innovation. Much of the discontent with the doctrine has been spurred by a relatively recent Federal Circuit opinion, Madey v. Duke University, which makes clear that a research university does not receive immunity under the experimental use exception …

The Right Not To Use In Property And Patent Law, Oskar Liivak, Eduardo M. Peñalver

Eduardo M. Peñalver

In Continental Paper Bag Co. v. Eastern Paper Bag Co., the Supreme Court held (1) that patent owners have an absolute right not to practice their patent and (2) that even these nonpracticing patent owners are entitled to the liberal use of injunctive relief against infringers. Both of these holdings have been very important to the viability of patent assertion entities, the so-called patent trolls. In eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., the Supreme Court softened the injunction rule. In this Article, we argue that Congress or the Court should reconsider Continental Paper Bag’s embrace of an absolute right not to …

Patents V. Statutory Exclusivities In Biological Pharmaceuticals - Do We Really Need Both, Yaniv Heled

Yaniv Heled

Over the past decade or so, the United States has been the arena of a boisterous debate regarding the creation of a new regulatory framework for the approval of generic versions of biologics-based pharmaceutical products (also known as "biological products" and "biologics")--an important and increasingly growing class of drugs. The basic purpose of such a framework is to create a fast and less-costly route to FDA approval for biologics that would be similar or identical to already-approved biological products--typically ones that are sold on the market at monopoly rates--thereby allowing cheaper versions of such medicines to enter the market. One …

Coordination-Focused Patent Policy, Stephen Yelderman

Stephen Yelderman

This paper explores the practical consequences of an important shift that has gradually taken place in patent theory. Although it was long agreed that the purpose of granting patents is to reward invention, some scholars now attempt to justify the patent system based on its role in facilitating information exchange and enabling technical coordination among firms. This change in justification is controversial, and its viability remains a fiercely contested question. But despite this intense attention at the level of theory, little has been said about the consequences of this debate for patent policy itself. This Article seeks to fill that …

Social Innovation, Peter Lee

Peter Lee

This Article provides the first legal examination of the immensely valuable but underappreciated phenomenon of social innovation. Innovations such as cognitive behavioral therapy, microfinance, and strategies to reduce hospital-based infections greatly enhance social welfare yet operate completely outside of the patent system, the primary legal mechanism for promoting innovation. This Article draws on empirical evidence to elucidate this significant kind of innovation and explore its divergence from the classic model of technological innovation championed by the patent system. In so doing, it illustrates how patent law exhibits a rather crabbed, particularistic conception of innovation. Among other characteristics, innovation in the …

The Leaky Common Law: An "Offer To Sell" As A Policy Tool In Patent Law And Beyond, Lucas S. Osborn

Lucas S. Osborn

No abstract provided.

Increased Market Power As A New Secondary Consideration In Patent Law, Andrew Blair-Stanek

Andrew Blair-Stanek

Courts have developed nine non-technical secondary considerations to help juries and judges in patent litigation decide whether a patent meets the crucial statutory requirement of being non-obvious. This article proposes a new, tenth secondary consideration: increased market power. If a patent measurably increases its holders’ market power, that should weigh in favor of finding the patent non-obvious. This new secondary consideration incorporates the predictive benefits of several existing secondary considerations, while increasing the accuracy and availability of evidence for fact-finders to determine whether a patent is non-obvious.

Surviving The America Invents Act’S Overhaul Of U.S. Patent Law - Startup And Small Business Perspectives, Ron D. Katznelson

Ron D. Katznelson

No abstract provided.

23andme Inc.: Patent Law And Lifestyle Genetics, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

The venture, 23andMe Inc., raises a host of issues in respect of patent law, policy, and practice in respect of lifestyle genetics and personalised medicine. The company observes: ‘We recognize that the availability of personal genetic information raises important issues at the nexus of ethics, law, and public policy’. 23andMe Inc. has tested the boundaries of patent law, with its patent applications, which cut across information technology, medicine, and biotechnology. The company’s research raises fundamental issues about patentability, especially in light of the litigation in Bilski v. Kappos, Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories Inc. and Association for Molecular Pathology …

Standards Of Proof In Civil Litigation: An Experiment From Patent Law, Christopher B. Seaman

Christopher B. Seaman

No abstract provided.

Rules Versus Standards: Competing Notions Of Inconsistency Robustness In Patent Law, David S. Olson, Stefania Fusco

David S. Olson

This Article applies a new paradigm from the field of computer science—inconsistency robustness (IR)—in order to analyze the competing ways in which the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit craft patent law standards and rules. The IR paradigm is a shift from the previous paradigm of inconsistency elimination. The new IR paradigm recognizes that modern, complex information systems must perform notwithstanding persistent and continuous inconsistencies. The focus on IR encourages system designers to recognize the reality of persistent inconsistency when building robust systems that can perform reliably. Legal systems regularly process a great deal of complexity and inconsistency, and thus, by …

Patent Law Handbook, 2011-2012 Edition, Lawrence Sung, Jeff Schwartz

Lawrence M. Sung

Helps attorneys discern what the courts may find, while providing immediate access to current law. Also alerts attorneys to new developments in the law and how they may impact an individual practice. Easy access to information on validity; inequitable conduct; defenses and counterclaims; infringement; willful infringement; remedies; appeal; pretrial and trial issues; Patent Office proceedings; licensing; patent proceedings in other forms, including ITC proceedings and claims court. Also analyzes Federal Circuit’s approach to statutory subject matter as it relates to computer software, its decision clarifying the role of judges and juries in interpreting claims, and its holdings in other opinions.

Overcoming The “Impossible Issue” Of Nonobviousness In Design Patents, Daniel Harris Brean, Janice M. Mueller

Daniel Harris Brean

Echoes Of Scientific Truth In The Halls Of Justice: The Standards Of Review Applied By The United States Court Of Appeals For The Federal Circuit In Patent-Related Matters, Lawrence M. Sung

Lawrence M. Sung

No abstract provided.

Stranger In A Strange Land: Biotechnology And The Federal Circuit, Lawrence Sung

Lawrence M. Sung

No abstract provided.

1995 Patent Law Decisions Of The United States Court Of Appeals For The Federal Circuit, Lawrence M. Sung

Lawrence M. Sung

No abstract provided.

Everything Is Patentable, Michael Risch

Michael Risch

The currently confused and inconsistent jurisprudence of patentable subject matter can be clarified by implementing a single rule - that which is otherwise patentable under the Patent Act is patentable subject matter. In other words, if a discovery otherwise meets the requirements of patentability - namely category, utility, novelty, non-obviousness, and specification - then the discovery will be properly patentable without need to consider traditional non-statutory subject matter issues such as mathematical algorithms, products of nature, or natural phenomena. The primary virtue of the proposed rule is that it provides a more rigorous and consistent doctrinal framework for determining patentability. …