Law Commons^™

Limiting Downstream Effects Of Patent Licensing Activity In Software And Electronics: An Argument For Alienability Of Patent Licenses To Licensees' Business Successors, Anna A. Onley

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Frustrating the ability to transfer ownership is costly, and non-creative entities (NCEs) may contribute to rising costs of innovation by contractually requiring their licensees to seek NCE consent to subsequent license transfers. One possible way of gradually limiting the reach of NCEs in this area is to expand the doctrine of patent misuse—which supports the unenforceability defense to patent infringement—to construe restraints on alienation of patent licenses as patent misuse. This narrowly tailored approach, discussed in this Note, minimizes the risk of negative impact on the patent system because it avoids the question of patent invalidity and does not seek …

When Is A Patent Exhausted? Licensing Patents On A Claim-By-Claim Basis, Lucas Dahlin

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The patent exhaustion doctrine is meant to protect legitimate purchasers of patented items from post-sale restrictions imposed by patent owners. The courts, however, have recently expanded the doctrine of patent exhaustion by holding that the sale of a device which “partially” practices a patent exhausts that patent in its entirety. This holding essentially precludes patent owners from licensing their patents on a claim-by-claim basis. As inventions become more complex and require more parties working in concert to bring an idea to market, the inability to license patents on a claim-by-claim basis will lead to inventors being unable to fully monetize …

Technically Speaking, Does It Matter? An Empirical Study Linking The Federal Circuit Judges' Technical Backgrounds To How They Analyze The Section 112 Enablement And Written Description Requirements, Dunstan H. Barnes

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Patent cases are decided exclusively by federal judges, who—unlike patent attorneys appearing before the United States Patent and Trademark Office—are not required to have any scientific or technical qualifications. The present empirical study explores whether there is a correlation between the technical backgrounds of judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and these judges’ analysis of the enablement and written description patent requirements under 35 U.S.C. § 112. The results indicate that Federal Circuit judges with technical backgrounds are more likely than their non-technical peers to reverse lower courts, but not significantly more likely to …

Markedly Low: An Argument To Raise The Burden Of Proof For Patent False Marking, Caroline Ayres Teichner

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The Federal Circuit's liberal treatment of the patent false-marking statute, 35 U.S.C. § 292, has created a climate in which opportunistic qui tam plaintiffs facing a low burden of proof can recover potentially enormous sums of money under the statute with no showing of competitive injury. This note argues that the Federal Circuit erred by ruling that plaintiffs must prove the key element of false-marking claims—namely, intent to deceive the public—by a mere preponderance of the evidence, and further contends that the court should have adopted the clear and convincing standard instead. Support for this elevated burden of proof can …

Biotech Biofuels: How Patents May Save Biofuels And Create Empires, Adam Wolek

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The United States' primary transportation energy sources are fossil fuels, namely, gasoline and diesel. These products have high environmental, security, and financial costs. A strong emphasis has been placed on biofuels, especially ethanol and biodiesel, to lessen reliance on fossil fuels. Historically, high production costs, lack of infrastructure, return on investment anxieties, and concerns about scaling-up production have slowed the development of these alternative technologies. Today, biotechnological solutions are lowering productions costs and making large scale production more economically feasible. Patents can lessen anxieties about investment as they can provide longer-term protection and market exclusivity for patented technologies. As biofuels …

"Willful Patent Filing": A Criminal Procedure Protecting Traditional Knowledge, Vincent M. Smoczynski

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article explores the interaction between current intellectual property regimes and traditional knowledge and concludes that national laws currently in place inadequately protect traditional knowledge holders. When property rights are granted on traditional knowledge, the effects can extend not only to the indigenous communities, but to the surrounding ecosystems and the global market. Commercialization and increased demand leads to shortages in natural resources and increased prices. Therefore, in order to ensure that patent applicants are deterred from acquiring property rights in traditional knowledge, as well that traditional knowledge holders receive proper benefits for their labor and knowledge, this article advocates …

Patenting Cryptographic Technology, Greg Vetter

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The policy concerns intersecting patent law and cryptographic technology relate to the technology's beneficial uses in securing information in a commercial and social fabric that increasingly relies on computing and electronic communications for its makeup. The presence of patenting in a technology can impact diffusion of interoperable technology. Standardized embeddable cryptography facilitates its supply. Patent law for several decades has waxed and waned in its embrace of software implemented inventions rooted in abstract ideas such as the mathematics and mathematical algorithms underlying modern cryptography. This article documents the growth of cryptographic patenting. Then, in light of this growth and patent …

Willful Patent Infringement After In Re Seagate: Just What Is "Objectively Reckless" Infringement?, Randy R. Micheletti

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Recently the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dramatically change the rules for proving willful patent infringement—and justifying enhanced damages—in In re Seagate Technology. A patentee alleging willful infringement must now first prove "by clear and convincing evidence that the infringer acted despite an objectively high likelihood that its actions constituted infringement of a valid patent." He must then show that the objectively defined risk was "either known or so obvious that it should have been known to the accused infringer." The court expressly delegated substantive development of the new test to future cases. Because district …

The Big Idea: Prizes To Stimulate R&D For New Medicines, James Love, Tim Hubbard

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Demise And Rebirth Of Plant Variety Protection: A Comment On Technological Change And The Design Of Plant Variety Protection Regimes, Laurence R. Helfer

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Technological Change And The Design Of Plant Variety Protection Regimes, Mark D. Janis, Stephen Smith

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In this paper, we examine the potential for plant variety protection ("PVP") regimes—that is, sui generis, industry-specific intellectual property regimes—to become compromised as a result of technological change. In particular, we analyze the shift in plant breeding from phenotypic selection to genotypic selection, and consider the impact of that shift on existing plant variety protection. We also lay out an alternative structure for plant intellectual property protection based on unfair competition, a model that differs radically in some respects from current PVP schemes. We offer our model as a starting point for debate on adaptations that might improve PVP …

The United States First-To-Invent System: Economic Justifications For Maintaining The Status Quo, Suzanne Konrad

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The latest patent reform bill, the United States Patent Act of 2005, has rehashed one of the most hotly contested debates in patent law: whether the United States should switch to a first-to-file system. Most arguments for keeping the current first-to-invent system center on fairness to small businesses or individual inventors. Although this argument has held its own for many years, it is beginning to erode in the face of counterarguments that the switch to a first-to-file system would be economically beneficial by simplifying matters and encouraging faster public disclosure. Thus fairness is no longer enough to justify maintaining the …

The Aftermath Of Festo V. Smc: Is There "Some Other Reason" For Justifying The Third Festo Rebuttal Criterion?, Erin Conway

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Encouraging technological innovation and improvement lies at the heart of the U.S. patent system. To achieve this goal, the patent system must provide robust protection to patentees while assuring that would-be inventors know exactly where protected inventions end and areas open to development begin. In recognizing the importance of these two functions of the patent laws, the Supreme Court in Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co. ("Festo VIII") set out to clarify the relationship between two important, yet troublesome, patent law doctrines-the doctrine of equivalents and prosecution history estoppel. However, in its attempt to restore balance …

Creative Lawmaking: A Comment On Lionel Bently, Copyright, Translations, And Relations Between Britain And India In The Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Centuries, Rochelle C. Dreyfuss

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

A New World Order For Addressing Patent Rights And Public Health, Cynthia M. Ho

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Can patent rights and public health coexist? This is a pressing global question in an era where the AIDS pandemic rages in countries that cannot afford to pay for the most effective—and patent-protected—AIDS treatment. Even in countries with higher levels of income, patent problems may nonetheless loom large in unanticipated situations that could turn deadly without access to patented drugs, such as the 2001 anthrax "crisis" or the potential avian flu epidemic. This article provides an important perspective on how international laws currently impact the intersection between patent rights and public health. This article begins with an explanation of patent …

The Rise And Fall Of Patent Law Uniformity And The Need For A Congressional Response, Scott Cole

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Congress established the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals a quarter century ago to create uniformity in the field of patent law. By significantly limiting the appellate jurisdiction of the Federal Circuit in patent related cases, the recent decision of Holmes v. Vornado in the United States Supreme Court makes this goal an impossibility. This Article addresses the purposes of uniformity in patent law, the ramifications of the limited jurisdiction of the Federal Circuit, and concludes with a proposed Congressional response designed to withstand a future appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Hatch-Waxman Act And Market Exclusivity For Generic Manufacturers: An Entitlement Or An Incentive?, Ashlee B. Mehl

Chicago-Kent Law Review

One of Congress' central goals in enacting the Hatch-Waxman Act was to expedite and encourage earlier market entry for generic pharmaceutical products. The Act provides that a generic firm may challenge a drug patent during its term by filing paperwork with the FDA that alleges either that its generic product does not infringe the relevant patent, or that the patent is invalid. If the patentee disagrees with the allegation of the generic firm, it may file suit and have a court determine infringement and validity. If the generic firm prevails in court on either count, it may enter the market …

What's That Mean? A Proposed Claim Construction Methodology For Phillips V. Awh Corp., Jessica C. Kaiser

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The Federal Circuit has granted en banc review in Phillips v. AWH Corp. to decide the appropriate methodology for patent claim construction. This Note examines the different approaches taken by Federal Circuit panels for claim construction: the intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy, holistic approach, and the "dictionary first" approach. This Note tests these approaches against the policies underlying patent law and concludes that both the holistic approach and the "dictionary first" approach fail to adequately further these policies.

Instead, this Note proposes a modified intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy. The proposed approach for claim construction looks first to the intrinsic evidence. If the meaning of the …