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Full-Text Articles in Science and Technology Law
Alternative Software Protection In View Of In Re Bilski, Charles Duan, Lauren Katzenellenbogen, James Skelley
Alternative Software Protection In View Of In Re Bilski, Charles Duan, Lauren Katzenellenbogen, James Skelley
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's (CAFC) en banc decision, In re Bilski, redefined the standard for patenting processes including business methods and computer software. In Bilski, the Federal Circuit departed from the "useful, concrete, and tangible result" test it had established in State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. SignatureFinancialGroup,Inc., which had been the standard for the past ten years. The Federal Circuit returned to a test articulated nearly 40 years ago by the Supreme Court in Gottschalk v. Benson, and clarified that State Street was "never intended to supplant the Supreme Court's test.", Under …
Sequential Innovation, Patents, And Imitation, James Bessen, Eric Maskin
Sequential Innovation, Patents, And Imitation, James Bessen, Eric Maskin
Faculty Scholarship
How could such industries as software, semiconductors, and computers have been so innovative despite historically weak patent protection? We argue that if innovation is both sequential and complementary--as it certainly has been in those industries--competition can increase firms' future profits thus offsetting short-term dissipation of rents. A simple model also shows that in such a dynamic industry, patent protection may reduce overall innovation and social welfare. The natural experiment that occurred when patent protection was extended to software in the 1980?s provides a test of this model. Standard arguments would predict that R&D intensity and productivity should have increased among …