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Full-Text Articles in Law
Patent Infringement As Trespass, Adam J. Macleod
Patent Infringement As Trespass, Adam J. Macleod
Faculty Articles
The now-conventional account of patent law holds that infringement is a strict liability offense, meaning that intent is not an element of an infringement claim. This account heightens the apparent injustice of patent law's special knowledge problem, that as ambiguous descriptions of intangible resources, patent claims do not sufficiently make potential infringers aware of a patentee's right to exclude. Particularly in the age of so-called "patent thickets, " clusters of patents of variable merit which are indistinguishable from each other and from prior art, strict liability, or infringement seems rather hard.
These problems reflect a conceptual misunderstanding. When infringement is …
Minimizing The Costs Of Patent Trolling, Vincent R. Johnson
Minimizing The Costs Of Patent Trolling, Vincent R. Johnson
Faculty Articles
Patent trolling is a serious legal problem. In addressing patent trolling, disclosure requirements and periodic reporting standards will be critical to minimizing the costs of this controversial practice.
Patent trolling, at its most problematic, generally refers to patent infringement allegations made by non-practicing entities (NPEs) which produce essentially no products or services except in connection with the buying and selling of patent rights. The targets of these patent “trolls” often lack basic information that is relevant to their evaluation of the claims against them, and policymakers know too little about specialized patent assertion entities and their impact on innovation and …