Law Commons^™

Acquiring Innovation, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

American University Law Review

In recent years, the innovation market has witnessed a new business model involving companies that are mere patent holding shells and not operating entities. They have no customers or products to offer, but they do have an aggressive tactic of using patent portfolios to threaten other operating companies with potential infringement litigation. The strategy is executed with the end goal of extracting handsome settlements. Acquisitions of patents for offensive use have become a major concern to operating companies because such acquisitions pose the threats of patent injunction, interrupting the business and crippling further innovation. While many operating companies today know …

Presentation: U.S. Licensing Regulation As A Model For Developing Countries, Benton C. Martin

Benton C. Martin

Highlights differences between legislation regulating goverment labs and universities and discusses the implications of these differences for developing countries seeking to emulate United States technology transfer legislation. Concludes that diversity amongst countries based on historical context and infrastructure is vital, just as it has been in regulating different types of institutions in the United States.

Antitrust Liability For Refusal To License Intellectual Property: A Comparative Analysis And The International Setting, Rita Coco

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

Antitrust and IP law both share the goals of promoting innovation and benefiting consumers. A potential for conflict exists, however, when a dominant firm's refusal to license IP rights affects the dynamics of competition. Antitrust intervention in IP rights can reduce incentives to invest, whereas a failure to allow anticompetitive behavior can harm consumers and competitors while reducing the efficiency of the economic system. The author reviews the European and United States approaches to monopolization claims involving IP rights. The European approach is limited by the mismatch between national enforcement of IP rights and community enforcement of antitrust law. The …

Wagging The Dog? Reconsidering Antitrust-Based Regulation Of Ip-Licensing, Gosta Schindler

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

This Article criticizes the institutional setup in which the antitrust policies regarding IP exploitation are designed and enforced. The author compares how IP licensing is scrutinized by antitrust regimes in the European Union and the United States. The result of that comparison leads to the conclusion that any attempted resolution of the IP-Antitrust dilemma will remain inadequate as long as it is antitrust-based, that is, regulated by antitrust laws or guidelines designed by antitrust-agencies. The author argues that antitrust concerns can and should be accounted for through proper construction and application of the IP laws themselves. The article suggests a …

Acquiring Innovation, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

Articles

In recent years, the innovation market has witnessed a new business model involving companies that are mere patent holding shells and not operating entities. They have no customers or products to offer, but they do have an aggressive tactic of using patent portfolios to threaten other operating companies with potential infringement litigation. The strategy is executed with the end goal of extracting handsome settlements. Acquisitions of patents for offensive use have become a major concern to operating companies because such acquisitions pose the threats of patent injunction, interrupting the business and crippling further innovation.

While many operating companies today know …