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Tax The Patent Trolls, James Bessen, Brian Love
Tax The Patent Trolls, James Bessen, Brian Love
Shorter Faculty Works
This essay argues that Congress should increase the size and frequency of patent renewal fees to reduce patent troll activity. Patents owned by trolls are generally old — twelve years on average — when finally asserted in court. Many such patents were originally filed to protect inventions that long ago became obsolete, and today hold value only because they were written so broadly that they arguably can be interpreted to cover technologies developed much later by other inventors. To shackle the dead hand of old inventions, other countries charge patent owners annual fees that must be paid to keep the …
Competitive Patent Law, William Hubbard
Competitive Patent Law, William Hubbard
All Faculty Scholarship
Can U.S. patent law help American businesses compete in global markets? In early 2011, President Barack Obama argued that, to obtain economic prosperity, the United States must "out-innovate . .. the rest of the world,"1 and that patent reform is a "critical dimension[]" 2 of this innovation agenda. Soon thereafter, Congress enacted the most sweeping reforms to U.S. patent law in more than half a century, contending that the changes will "give American inventors and innovators the 21st century patent system they need to compete."3 Surprisingly, no legal scholar has assessed whether patent reform is capable of making …
The Competitive Advantage Of Weak Patents, William Hubbard
The Competitive Advantage Of Weak Patents, William Hubbard
All Faculty Scholarship
Does U.S. patent law increase the competitiveness of U.S. firms in global markets? This Article argues that, contrary to the beliefs of many U.S. lawmakers, U.S. patent law currently undermines the ability of U.S. firms to compete in global markets because strong U.S. patent rights actually weaken an overlooked but critical determinant of U.S. competitiveness: rivalry among U.S. firms. Intense domestic rivalry drives firms to improve relentlessly, spawns related and supporting domestic industries, and encourages the domestic development of advanced factors of production—like specialized labor forces. U.S. patents restrict rivalry among foreign firms less because U.S. patents have little extraterritorial …
Make The Patent “Polluters” Pay: Using Pigovian Fees To Curb Patent Abuse, James Bessen, Brian Love
Make The Patent “Polluters” Pay: Using Pigovian Fees To Curb Patent Abuse, James Bessen, Brian Love
Faculty Scholarship
On the heels of a widely reported uptick in egregious patent enforcement, six patent reform bills have been introduced in the last six months. All six bills aim to curb nuisance-value patent litigation, a phenomenon popularly referred to as “patent trolling,” by reducing the cost of defending these suits. In this essay, we argue that these bills, while admirable, treat the symptoms of our patent system’s ills, rather than the disease itself: a growing glut of unused high-tech patents that have little practical value apart from use as vehicles for nuisance-value litigation. Accordingly, we urge Congress to consider one additional …
The Presumption Of Patentability, Sean B. Seymore
The Presumption Of Patentability, Sean B. Seymore
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
When the Framers of the United States Constitution granted Congress the authority to create a patent system, they certainty did not envision a patent as an a priori entitlement. As it stands now, anyone who files a patent application on anything is entitled to a presumption of patentability. A patent examiner who seeks to challenge patentability faces the dual burden of building a prima facie case of unpatentability and carrying the ultimate burden of proof. Thus, from the outset, an applicant is in a very good position; but the examiner’s limited resources, time pressures, and production goals tip the scales …