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Patents And Competition: Commercializing Innovation In The Global Ecosystem For 5g And The Internet Of Things, Thomas D. Grant, F. Scott Kieff
Patents And Competition: Commercializing Innovation In The Global Ecosystem For 5g And The Internet Of Things, Thomas D. Grant, F. Scott Kieff
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Times are changing as our global ecosystem for commercializing innovation helps bring new technologies to market, networks grow, interconnections and transactions become more complex around standards and otherwise, all to enable vast opportunities to improve the human condition, to further competition, and to improve broad access. The policies that governments use to structure their legal systems for intellectual property, especially patents, as well as for competition—or antitrust—continue to have myriad powerful impacts and raise intense debates over challenging questions. This Chapter explores a representative set of debates about policy approaches to patents, to elucidate particular ideas to bear in mind …
Patent Law: An Open-Source Casebook (Chapter 8: Defenses), Dmitry Karshtedt, Mark D. Janis, Ted M. Sichelman
Patent Law: An Open-Source Casebook (Chapter 8: Defenses), Dmitry Karshtedt, Mark D. Janis, Ted M. Sichelman
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Less than a handful of casebooks are truly open source, in the sense of being fully modifiable. Patent Law: An Open-Source Casebook is the first patent law casebook that provides adopting professors, students, and others the ability to fully modify its contents. This chapter of the casebook covers defenses to infringement, including inequitable conduct, patent exhaustion, patent misuse, laches, equitable estoppel, experimental use, and spoliation of evidence.
The Death Of The Genus Claim, Dmitry Karshtedt, Mark A. Lemley, Sean B. Seymore
The Death Of The Genus Claim, Dmitry Karshtedt, Mark A. Lemley, Sean B. Seymore
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
The central feature of patent law in the chemical, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industries is the genus claim – a patent that covers not just one specific chemical but a group of related chemicals. Genus claims are everywhere, and any patent lawyer will tell you they are critical to effective patent protection.
But as we show in this article, the law has changed dramatically in the last twenty-five years, to the point where it is no longer possible to have a valid genus claim. Courts almost always hold them invalid. Remarkably, they do this without having acknowledged that they have fundamentally …
Removing Property From Intellectual Property And (Intended?) Pernicious Impacts On Innovation And Competition, F. Scott Kieff
Removing Property From Intellectual Property And (Intended?) Pernicious Impacts On Innovation And Competition, F. Scott Kieff
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Commentators have poured forth a loud and sustained outcry over the past few years that sees property rule treatment of intellectual property (IP) as a cause of excessive transaction costs, thickets, anticommons, hold-ups, hold-outs, and trolls, which unduly tax and retard innovation, competition, and economic growth. The popular response has been to seek a legislative shift towards some limited use of weaker, liability rule treatment, usually portrayed as “just enough” to facilitate transactions in those special cases where the bargaining problems are at their worst and where escape hatches are most needed. This essay is designed to make two contributions. …
Ending The Patent Monopoly, Michael B. Abramowicz, John H. Duffy
Ending The Patent Monopoly, Michael B. Abramowicz, John H. Duffy
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
For nearly two centuries, an inventor applying for a U.S. patent has been required to obtain the opinion of an expert who has searched the prior art and determined that the inventor’s application meets the standards of patentability. And for nearly two centuries, those expert opinions could be obtained only from a single office run by the U.S. government. The patenting monopoly, which is almost certainly undesirable, is now being eroded. Rising global trade and technological sophistication have increased the number of patent filings in every country; government patent offices here and abroad are thus being driven to rely on …
Comment On Intellectual Property, Concentration And The Limits Of Antitrust In The Biotech Seed Industry, F. Scott Kieff
Comment On Intellectual Property, Concentration And The Limits Of Antitrust In The Biotech Seed Industry, F. Scott Kieff
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This comment was filed with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division on December 31, 2009, as "Comments Regarding Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues in Our 21st Century Economy" in response to the DOJ/USDA request for public comments for the agencies' joint workshops on antitrust issues in the agricultural sector.
Regarding firm size and integration, it must be kept in mind that the agriculture industry in the U.S. has, for good reasons, moved beyond the historic, pastoral image of small family farms operating in quiet isolation, devoid of big business and modern technologies. The genetic traits that give modern seeds their …
The Danger Of Underdeveloped Patent Prospects, Michael B. Abramowicz
The Danger Of Underdeveloped Patent Prospects, Michael B. Abramowicz
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Commentators have long recognized that much of the work of commercializing an invention occurs after a patent issues. They have not recognized, however, that by the time market conditions make commercialization potentially attractive, the remaining patent term might be sufficiently short such that a patentee will not develop an invention to the extent that the patentee would if more patent term remained. This concern about patent underdevelopment provides a counterweight to patent prospect theory, which urges that patents be issued relatively early in the invention process. While the patent system reduces this risk by requiring a substantial degree of achievement …