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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Procedure Of Patent Eligibility, Paul Gugliuzza
The Procedure Of Patent Eligibility, Paul Gugliuzza
Faculty Scholarship
A decade ago, the patent-eligible subject matter requirement was defunct. Several recent Supreme Court decisions, however, have made eligibility the most important issue in many patent cases. To date, debates over the resurgent doctrine have focused mainly on its substance. Critics contend that the Supreme Court’s case law makes patents too easy to invalidate and discourages innovation. Supporters emphasize that the Court’s decisions help eradicate the overly broad patents often asserted by so-called patent trolls.
Yet one important consequence of eligibility’s revival has been procedural. Because district courts often view eligibility to present a pure question of law, they are—for …
Diffusing New Technology Without Dissipating Rents: Some Historical Case Studies Of Knowledge Sharing, James Bessen, Alessandro Nuvolari
Diffusing New Technology Without Dissipating Rents: Some Historical Case Studies Of Knowledge Sharing, James Bessen, Alessandro Nuvolari
Faculty Scholarship
The diffusion of innovations is supposed to dissipate inventors’ rents. Yet in many documented cases, inventors freely shared knowledge with their competitors. Using a model and case studies, this article explores why sharing did not eliminate inventors’ incentives. Each new technology coexisted with an alternative for one or more decades. This allowed inventors to earn rents while sharing knowledge, attaining major productivity gains. The technology diffusion literature suggests that such circumstances are common during the early stages of a new technology.
Price Discrimination & Intellectual Property, Michael J. Meurer, Ben Depoorter
Price Discrimination & Intellectual Property, Michael J. Meurer, Ben Depoorter
Faculty Scholarship
This chapter reviews the law and economics literature on intellectual property law and price discrimination. We introduce legal scholars to the wide range of techniques used by intellectual property owners to practice price discrimination; in many cases the link between commercial practice and price discrimination may not be apparent to non-economists. We introduce economists to the many facets of intellectual property law that influence the profitability and practice of price discrimination. The law in this area has complex effects on customer sorting and arbitrage. Intellectual property law offers fertile ground for analysis of policies that facilitate or discourage price discrimination. …