Law Commons^™

The Antitrusting Of Patentability, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

Deciding a patent’s validity is costly, and so is deciding it incorrectly. Judges and juries must expend significant resources in order to reach a patent validity determination that is properly informed by the relevant facts. At the same time, patent validity determinations reached quickly and cheaply may conserve resources today while creating future costs. Wrongly preserving an invalid patent can distort the competitive market and enable abuses, such as nuisance litigation. Meanwhile, wrongly striking down a valid patent can undermine incentives for continued investment and commercialization in knowledge assets. Courts facing patent validity issues have begun to strike this balance …