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Full-Text Articles in Law
Pathological Patenting: The Pto As Cause Or Cure, Rochelle Dreyfuss
Pathological Patenting: The Pto As Cause Or Cure, Rochelle Dreyfuss
Michigan Law Review
The Patent Act was last revised in 1952. The hydrogen bomb was exploded that year, vividly demonstrating the power of the nucleus; in the ensuing postwar period, the Next Big Thing was clearly the molecule. Novel compounds were synthesized in the hopes of finding new medicines; solid-state devices exploited the special characteristics of germanium and other semiconductors; as investments in polymer chemistry soared, advice to the college graduate soon boiled down to "one word ... just one word[:] ... Plastics." Over the next half-century, things changed dramatically. "Better living through chemistry" has begun to sound dated (if not sinister). Genomics …
Planting A Standard: Proposing A Broad Reading Of In Re Elsner, Alicia L. Frostick
Planting A Standard: Proposing A Broad Reading Of In Re Elsner, Alicia L. Frostick
Michigan Law Review
This Note will show that one can read Elsner broadly to encompass both plant-type and widget-type inventions, and that applying Elsner to both plants and widgets is within the current statutory framework and case law. Such a reading would change the § 102 bar for inventions patentable under § 10i29 (hereinafter referred to as "widgets") as well as for plants. Part I of this Note argues that congressional sources require a flexible test-one that does not prejudice any objects under the Patent Act. Part II discusses the judicial interpretation of the Patent Act prior to Elsner in order to argue …
Publish Or Perish, Gideon Parchomovsky
Publish Or Perish, Gideon Parchomovsky
Michigan Law Review
The race model has been the darling of patent economists and game theorists. This model assumes that the winner, namely the first to invent, takes the patent grant with the market dominance that comes with it, whereas the second comer, in the best tradition of sports contests, obligingly accepts her loss and quietly vanishes from the scene. While the sports analogy has provided a useful framework for understanding the economics of invention, it has obfuscated an important aspect of the inventive process: the possibility of strategic publication of research findings in order to prevent the issuance of a patent to …
The Patentee's Gains From Royalty Differentiation Under Exclusive Territorial Licensing, William G. Snead
The Patentee's Gains From Royalty Differentiation Under Exclusive Territorial Licensing, William G. Snead
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Royalty differentiation under exclusive territorial grants is a device which a patent owner, given proper conditions, can use to maximize his profits from licensing the patent rights to an invention. The patentee creates exclusive territories by granting only one license per territory, and then sets different royalties for each territory in accordance with the differing price elasticities of demand for the patented end product. Commentators have taken various stands on how the interests of the patentee and the public should be balanced in determining the desirability of permitting such exclusive territorial grants. One analysis purports to show that permitting a …
Patent Law-Reissue Patents-Application Of Public Use And Sale Bar: Section 102(B), Robert V. Seymour
Patent Law-Reissue Patents-Application Of Public Use And Sale Bar: Section 102(B), Robert V. Seymour
Michigan Law Review
Patentee applied for an original patent, defining a shelving unit; the patent was issued twenty-two months subsequent to the date of application. Less than two months later, application for a reissue patent was filed, describing and claiming a change in the dimensions of a given surface from "greater than one-half' to "greater than one-third" the height of a prescribed standard. The reissue patent was awarded eight months after the application for reissue. Patentee subsequently assigned the reissue to plaintiff corporation. Plaintiff brought suit for infringement, and defendant moved for summary judgment on the ground that the reissue was invalid because …