Law Commons^™

A Closer Look At The "Eye" Test: The British Influence On Early American Design Patent Infringement Law, Mark D. Janis

IP Theory

The Supreme Court has asserted that “[t]he Patent Clause in our Constitution ‘was written against the backdrop’ of the English system.” That notion has a long lineage. In 1818, the author of an anonymous “Note on the Patent Laws,” widely assumed to be Justice Story, claimed that “[t]he patent acts of the United States are, in a great degree, founded on the principles and usages which have grown out of the English statute on the same subject.”

But these generalizations significantly overstate—and oversimplify—the influence of British law on the nascent American jurisprudence of patents. Early American jurists felt no reluctance …

Determining Enhanced Damages After Halo Electronics: Still A Struggle?, Veronica Corcoran

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

35 U.S.C. § 284 of the Patent Act allows district courts to use their discretion to award enhanced damages up to three times the amount found or assessed in the case of patent infringement. This Comment will consider how the Supreme court of the United States’ holding in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse electronics, Inc. changed the landscape of enhanced damages awards in light of willful infringement.

First, this Comment will examine the Federal Circuit’s approach that now embraces both an objective and subjective inquiry in determining enhanced damages, which may resolve the concern over the rigidity in the Seagate …

The Institutional Role In Arbitrating Patent Disputes, Murray Lee Eiland

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This paper will address, in particular, the nature of an international patent dispute and how the rules of the main arbitral institutions influence the unfolding arbitration. The main issue considered here is if institutional rules address the particular needs of patent disputes. Arbitral institutions are prepared to resolve many kinds of disputes, but because they operate under different rules, some may be more or less prepared for the special nature of IP. Patent related disputes are even more specialized. Even small differences in institutional rules can have a large impact upon the unfolding arbitration. After a brief consideration of arbitrability, …

Contractual Expansion Of The Scope Of Patent Infringement Through Field-Of-Use Licensing, Mark R. Patterson

Faculty Scholarship

Patentees sometimes license their inventions through field-of-use licenses, which permit licensees to use the inventions, but only in specified ways. Field-of-use licensing is often procompetitive, because the ability to provide different licensing terms for different users can encourage broader licensing of inventions. But in recent United States cases, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and lower courts have upheld field-of-use licenses prohibiting activities that licensees would otherwise have been permitted by patent law, such as the repair and resale of patented products. The recent cases rely on the Federal Circuit's decision in Mallinckrodt, Inc. v. Medipart, Inc., where the court …

Festo: A Case Contravening The Convergence Of Doctrine Of Equivalents Jurisprudence In Germany, The United Kingdom, And The United States, Katherine E. White

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Despite differences in patent law jurisprudence in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, the fundamental principles underlying each system serve the same basic purpose: to encourage technological innovation and dissemination of knowledge. In granting exclusive patent rights, it is important that the scope of patent protection not be so broad as to remove existing knowledge from the public domain. The scope of protection should strike a balance between granting adequate patent rights while preserving the public's ownership in the public domain or the prior art. To encourage innovation patentees must attain significant exclusive rights, while potential infringers receive …

Patent Infringement Damages In Japan And The United States: Will Increased Patent Infringement Damage Awards Revive The Japanese Economy?, Toshiko Takenaka

Articles

This Article will look at the impact of the new Japanese legislation on patent infringement damages and will discuss whether the increase in damage awards contributes to the creation of breakthrough technology. To understand this impact, Part I will discuss pre-1998 legislation damages and highlight the difference between damages awarded by United States courts and those awarded by Japanese courts, by comparing United States and Japanese case examples. In examining the general tort and patent law theories, Part I will also try to identify the source of the difference and discuss how this difference is reflected in current United States …