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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Right Not To Use In Property And Patent Law, Oskar Liivak, Eduardo M. Peñalver
The Right Not To Use In Property And Patent Law, Oskar Liivak, Eduardo M. Peñalver
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
In Continental Paper Bag Co. v. Eastern Paper Bag Co., the Supreme Court held (1) that patent owners have an absolute right not to practice their patent and (2) that even these nonpracticing patent owners are entitled to the liberal use of injunctive relief against infringers. Both of these holdings have been very important to the viability of patent assertion entities, the so-called patent trolls. In eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., the Supreme Court softened the injunction rule. In this Article, we argue that Congress or the Court should reconsider Continental Paper Bag’s embrace of an absolute right …
Is It Time For A Rule 11 For The Patent Bar?, Ralph D. Clifford
Is It Time For A Rule 11 For The Patent Bar?, Ralph D. Clifford
Faculty Publications
The failure to require the patent bar to be completely candid in its dealings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) is one of the reasons behind the patent quality problem in the United States. Although PTO regulations impose a duty of candor on both the patent applicant and his or he attorney, this duty of disclosure is limited to matters already known by the parties. The regulations impose no duty to become educated about the technology that underlies a claimed invention. Indeed, there are rational reasons why a patent applicant might seek an uneducated attorney and order him …
Patent Misjoinder, David O. Taylor
Patent Misjoinder, David O. Taylor
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act effectively repealed aspects of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure by creating a new statutory section governing joinder of accused infringers and consolidation of actions for trial in most patent infringement cases. This new law codifies a substantial barrier to joinder and consolidation, contradicting two of the primary policies embraced by the drafters of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: the promotion of liberal standards both for evaluating the sufficiency of pleadings and for evaluating the propriety of joinder of parties. Remarkably, the new statutory section does so despite the absence of any detailed scholarly …
The Presumption Of Patentability, Sean B. Seymore
The Presumption Of Patentability, Sean B. Seymore
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
When the Framers of the United States Constitution granted Congress the authority to create a patent system, they certainty did not envision a patent as an a priori entitlement. As it stands now, anyone who files a patent application on anything is entitled to a presumption of patentability. A patent examiner who seeks to challenge patentability faces the dual burden of building a prima facie case of unpatentability and carrying the ultimate burden of proof. Thus, from the outset, an applicant is in a very good position; but the examiner’s limited resources, time pressures, and production goals tip the scales …
The Patent System In Pre-1989 Czechoslovakia, Marketa Trimble
The Patent System In Pre-1989 Czechoslovakia, Marketa Trimble
Scholarly Works
The chapter analyzes patent law in Czechoslovakia in the period from 1945 until the end of communist rule in 1989. In addition to reviewing the legislative development of patent law – the laws on the books – the chapter explains the law in action, which includes the application of the law in practice and the attitudes of Czechoslovak society toward inventive activities and patenting. The chapter shows that post-1945 Czechoslovak patent law drew on a highly developed pre-1940 Czechoslovak patent law and practice that was based on the Austrian patent law inherited by Czechoslovakia in 1918 when it split from …
Prometheus Rebound: Diagnostics, Nature, And Mathematical Algorithms, Rebecca S. Eisenberg
Prometheus Rebound: Diagnostics, Nature, And Mathematical Algorithms, Rebecca S. Eisenberg
Articles
The Supreme Court’s decision last Term in Mayo v. Prometheus left considerable uncertainty as to the boundaries of patentable subject matter for molecular diagnostic inventions. First, the Court took an expansive approach to what counts as an unpatentable natural law by applying that term to the relationship set forth in the challenged patent between a patient’s levels of a drug metabolite and the indication of a need to adjust the patient’s drug dosage. And second, in evaluating whether the patent claims add enough to this unpatentable natural law to be patent eligible, the Court did not consult precedents concerning the …
Ip Injury And The Institutions Of Patent Law, Paul Gugliuzza
Ip Injury And The Institutions Of Patent Law, Paul Gugliuzza
Faculty Scholarship
This paper reviews Creation Without Restraint: Promoting Liberty and Rivalry in Innovation, the pathbreaking book by Christina Bohannan and Herbert Hovenkamp (Oxford Univ. Press 2012). The Review begins by summarizing the book’s descriptive insights and analyzing one of its important normative proposals: the adoption of an IP injury requirement. This requirement would demand that infringement plaintiffs prove -- before obtaining damages or an injunction -- an injury to the incentive to innovate. After explaining how this requirement is easy to justify under governing law and is largely consistent with recent Supreme Court decisions in the field of patent law, the …
Information May Want To Be Free, But Information Products Do Not: Protecting & Facilitating Transactions In Information Products (Reprint), Kristen Osenga
Information May Want To Be Free, But Information Products Do Not: Protecting & Facilitating Transactions In Information Products (Reprint), Kristen Osenga
Law Faculty Publications
Information products-products that are used to organize, provide context, and distribute information-have gone largely unprotected by intellectual property regimes. As a result, producers of information products, such as databases and software, have resorted to alternative mechanisms to protect their investments. These mechanisms have resulted in both over-protection and under-protection ofthe information products. Further, the uncertainty in the boundaries of coverage, coupled with the resort to self-help mechanisms, may well inhibit, rather than facilitate, information flow. What is needed is a sui generis protection scheme for information products that clearly defines the boundaries and protection requirements for these works and that …
The Impact Of Codification On The Judicial Development Of Copyright, Christopher S. Yoo
The Impact Of Codification On The Judicial Development Of Copyright, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
Despite the Supreme Court’s rejection of common law copyright in Wheaton v. Peters and the more specific codification by the Copyright Act of 1976, courts have continued to play an active role in determining the scope of copyright. Four areas of continuing judicial innovation include fair use, misuse, third-party liability, and the first sale doctrine. Some commentators have advocated broad judicial power to revise and overturn statutes. Such sweeping judicial power is hard to reconcile with the democratic commitment to legislative supremacy. At the other extreme are those that view codification as completely displacing courts’ authority to develop legal principles. …