Law Commons^™

Commentary: Authority Of The Commissioner Over The Board Of Patent Appeals And Interferences, R. Carl Moy

Faculty Scholarship

On August 3, 1992, the United States Patent and Trademark Office published a notice in the Federal Register requesting public comments on the PTO's appeal procedures. Taken in context, then, the notice can be fairly said to raise the issue whether, under the existing statute, the Board is subservient to the Commissioner. It also raises the broader question of whether such a subservient arrangement is desirable or, alternatively, whether the statute should be modified if necessary to give the Board decisional independence from the Commissioner. This Commentary is directed primarily to this latter point. In summary, it concludes that the …

The History Of The Patent Harmonization Treaty: Economic Self-Interest As An Influence, R. Carl Moy

Faculty Scholarship

How shall the United States decide whether to adopt the Patent Harmonization Treaty? What questions shall we ask? Whose answers shall we trust? What sources of information can provide us with the background needed for these inquiries? This article offers a framework in which to ask, and begin to answer, these questions. It focuses on the international community's past efforts to harmonize the law of patents. It asserts not only that history provides context, but also, that the same history yields lessons directly applicable to many of the treaty's basic issues. Section I discusses the immediate history of WIPO's efforts …

What's New In Intellectual Property - Business Is Booming In Copyright, Trademark And Patent Law, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

Forget the trendy law practice areas of the 1980s, such as mergers and acquisitions, real estate and antitrust. Intellectual property is where the action will be in the 1990s.

The Effect Of New Rule 56 On The Law Of Inequitable Conduct, R. Carl Moy

Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses Rule 56 of the Patent and Trademark Office. Part II discusses changes from the old to the new Rule 56, and examines the former’s relationship to the law of inequitable conduct. Part III elaborates on the current status of the PTO’s rulemaking efforts, and Part IV is focused on the new Rule under the APA. Parts V and VI are about new Rule 56 as a hortatory statement and common-law jurisprudential limitations, respectively. The author ultimately concludes that the PTO could have chosen to approach the Federal Circuit as an amicus without a prior rulemaking proceeding. That …

Prospects For Adr In Patent Disputes: An Empirical Assessment Of Attorneys' Attitudes, Thomas G. Field Jr., Michael Rose

Law Faculty Scholarship

For the most part, parties with a legal dispute have either settled their differences or, when that wasn't possible, litigated them. However, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is increasingly urged as a supplement or substitute in a wide range of areas. ADR usually involves at least one third party who is employed by neither the judicial system nor one of the parties to the dispute. The third party may be a mediator, who helps the parties reach settlement, or an arbitrator, who renders a decision. While arbitration has been widely used for many years, until very recently, mediation (or conciliation) was …

Comment: Perceptions Of Chief Patent Counsel At Large Corporations Of The Effects Of Patent Term, Products Liability And Government Regulations On Firm R&D, Thomas G. Field Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

Last summer, over 300 members of the Association of (chief) Corporate Patent Counsel were surveyed concerning their attitude toward and experience with arbitration and mediation (ADR). Seventy-five responded. Subsequently, tabulations of the survey data were sent to the same people with four additional questions, two of which had nothing to do with ADR. Forty-one responded. This comment reports responses to the two questions unrelated to ADR.

Handwritten Notes On Of Harms And Benefits: Torts, Restitution, And Intellectual Property - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Copyright and patent take the form of ordinary property. As tangible property has physical edges, intellectual property statutes create boundaries by defining the subject matters within their zone of protection. As real property owners have rights to prevent strangers from entering their land. intellectual property statutes and case law grant owners rights to exclude strangers from using the protected work in specified ways. As tangible property can be bought and sold, bequeathed and inherited, so can copyrights and patents.

Pharmaceuticals And Intellectual Property: Meeting Needs Throughout The World, Thomas G. Field Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

To the extent that most people think about patents and other forms of intellectual property at all, they tend to be aware that the owners of such property may have the legal capacity to limit market entry--without fully appreciating the extent to which products or processes that can be easily copied might otherwise be unavailable. Focusing on their function in recouping risk capital, this article will survey the types and functions of intellectual property. Then it will attend to the situation in developing countries, particularly the role of intellectual property in meeting their needs for medical products.

The Interpretation Of Means Expressions During Prosecution, R. Carl Moy

Faculty Scholarship

This article briefly explains how the scope of a claim including a means expression is determined both under the PTO view and a strict application of the statutory language. The lack of consensus and current state of the law in the area are illustrated through an analysis of several recent decisions of the Federal Circuit. The policies underlying the PTO and statutory methods of interpreting means expressions during prosecution are examined in an effort to demonstrate that the statutory method more effectively furthers the policies underlying the patent system.

Law And Fact In Patent Litigation: Form Versus Function, Thomas G. Field Jr

Law Faculty Scholarship

Recently, the Supreme Court sent Dennison Mfg. v. Panduit Corp. back to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). It remanded with explicit directions that the lower court consider the extent to which Rule 52(a) governs appellate review of determinations of obviousness.

It is by no means certain that obviousness determinations should be treated as questions of law. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence that courts seek to review findings of obviousness (or nonobviousness) more intensely than would be appropriate under the "clearly erroneous" or "substantial evidence" standards. If the courts are inclined to persist in more intense review …

Brief Survey Of And Proposal For Better Reconciliation Of The Options In Patent, Trademark, Copyright And Related Law, Thomas G. Field Jr

Law Faculty Scholarship

Taking up trademarks, patents, copyrights, and trade secrets (in that order), [this article] will attempt to summarize briefly the ways in which such rights arise, are perfected, and are enforced. It will also discuss a hypothetical in which all of these options will be discussed in a comparative way. Finally, it will suggest that basic improvements in the area could be realized by dispensing with the often confusing and arbitrary subject matter distinctions which characterize the various subparts of the present intellectual property system.

Patent Arbitration: Past, Present And Future, Thomas G. Field Jr

Law Faculty Scholarship

Most attorneys have heard of arbitration, but few have more than a vague idea of what it is or have any experience with it. Patent attorneys are no exception, and many are no doubt wondering about the implications of §294. It was enacted in August of 1982, and went into effect in February 1983: Why was it needed and passed, and what does it mean?

Diamond V. Diehr, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Diamond V. Bradley, Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Diamond V. Chakrabarty, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Post Hoc Evaluations Of Obviousness: Preliminary Report Of An Attempt To Identify, Empirically, The Characteristics Of A Superior Evaluator, Juanita V. Field, Thomas G. Field Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

Over a century and a quarter have passed since the Supreme Court in Hotchkiss v. Greenwood held that more than mere novelty is necessary to support a valid patent. Congress, after 100 years of experience with a concept which came to be called "invention," attempted to improve the situation by requiring that an invention not be "obvious" if it is to be patented. It seems safe to say that in the intervening time the doctrine of non-obviousness has not developed into a foolproof yardstick for measuring the quality of cerebral or other effort necessary to make an advance over the …

Parker V. Flook, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Dann V. Johnston, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Intellectual And Industrial Property In A Nutshell, Thomas G. Field Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

First, intellectual and industrial property is property--extremely valuable property at that. However, this is not a subject that gets more than passing attention in many curricula, and none in most. Consequently, few lawyers, aside from the specialists, know much about it. Moreover, unlike most areas of legal specialization, such as tax, labor, and anti-trust law, the basic principles of which are known to most general practitioners, if a generalist knows anything about literary or industrial property, it is apt to be wrong. Furthermore, because clients tend to approach generalists first, substantial and incurable injury may result from a generalist's mistaken …

Gottschalk V. Benson, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

State Law Of Patent Exploitation, Edward H. Cooper

Articles

The main purpose of the present inquiry is to determine whether second thoughts support or undermine the instinctive supposition that the doctrines surrounding cooperative use of patents should be federal. The original creator of a patented invention is seldom in a position to exploit its commercial potential alone; even if the invention is created by the employee of a vast enterprise, it is almost inevitable that the patent will be assigned to his employer. Patent licensing plays a vitally important role in the development of many inventions. The contract doctrines surrounding such transactions, and various other consensual undertakings relating to …