Law Commons^™

Do Patents Facilitate Financing In The Software Industry?, Ronald J. Mann

ExpressO

This paper is the first part of a wide-ranging study of the role of intellectual property in the software industry. Unlike previous papers, which focus primarily on software patents – which generally are held by firms that are not software firms – this paper provides a thorough and contextually grounded description of the role that patents actually play in the software industry itself.

The bulk of the paper considers the pros and cons of patents in the software industry. On the positive side, the paper starts by emphasizing the difficulties that pre-revenue startups face in obtaining any value from patents. …

Changing Invention Economics By Encouraging Corporate Inventors To Sell Patents, William A. Drennan

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Technology Worth Patenting, Thomas G. Field Jr

Law Faculty Scholarship

Inevitably scarce resources are better invested in deciding which [patent] applications are worth filing and seeking the broadest defensible claims for those that are chosen. Whether a patent can be obtained for less than, say, $10,000 is the wrong question. Whether a patent is worth having is the better question—particularly from the standpoint of prospective licensees.

The Future Role Of The United States Court Of Appeals For The Federal Circuit Now That It Has Turned 21, Richard Linn

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is The Federal Circuit Succeeding? An Empirical Assessment Of Judicial Performance, Polk Wagner, Lee Petherbridge

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

As an appellate body jurisdictionally demarcated by subject matter rather than geography, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit occupies a unique role in the federal judiciary. This controversial institutional design has had profound effects on the jurisprudential development of the legal regimes within its purview - especially the patent law, which the Federal Circuit has come to thoroughly dominate in its two decades of existence. In this Article, we assess the court's performance against its basic premise: that, as compared to prior regional circuit involvement, centralization of legal authority will yield a clearer, more coherent, and …

A Malpractice Suit Waiting To Happen: The Conflict Between Perfecting Security Interests In Patents And Copyrights (A Note Of Peregrine, Cybernetic And Their Progeny), R. Scott Griffin

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Look At Software Patents, James Bessen, Robert M. Hunt

Faculty Scholarship

U.S. legal changes have made it easier to obtain patents on inventions that use software. Software patents have grown rapidly and now comprise 15 percent of all patents. They are acquired primarily by large manufacturing firms in industries known for strategic patenting; only 5 percent belong to software publishers. The very large increase in software patent propensity over time is not adequately explained by changes in R&D investments, employment of computer programmers, or productivity growth. The residual increase in patent propensity is consistent with a sizeable rise in the cost effectiveness of software patents during the 1990s. We find evidence …

Patents And The Diffusion Of Technical Information, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

Does the disclosure requirement of the patent system encourage the diffusion of inventions? This paper builds a simple model where firms choose between patents and trade secrecy to protect inventions. Diffusion is not necessarily more likely with a patent system nor is the market for technology necessarily greater.

In Search Of The Golden Years: How Compulsory Licensing Can Lower The Price Of Prescription Drugs For Millions Of Senior Citizens In The United States, Debjani Roy

Cleveland State Law Review

This article will show that compulsory licensing is the best remedy for the escalating cost of prescription drugs in the United States. Section II will provide a historical overview of American pharmaceutical patent law and will introduce the concept of compulsory licensing as a method to decrease the high cost of prescription drugs for senior citizens in the United States. Section III will look at the newly enacted Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act, and state and local government plans to import cheaper brand-name prescription drugs from Canada. Section IV will look at the United States' international support for compulsory …

The Doctrine Of Equivalents And Claiming The Future After Festo, Joshua Sarnoff

College of Law Faculty

In two recent cases, Warner-Jenkinson Co. v. Hilton Davis Chemical Co., 520 U.S. 17 (1997), and Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., 535 U.S. 722 (2002), the Supreme Court unanimously approved of the modern doctrine of equivalents articulated in Graver Tank & Manufacturing Co. v. Linde Air Products Co., 339 U.S. 605 (1950). The Court also extended equivalents protection to later-arising technologies and imperfectly reconciled the modern doctrine with the doctrine of prosecution history estoppel for amended claims. The Court's new doctrine conflicts with historic implied-disclaimer standards. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has further …

Reforming Patent Validity Litigation: The "Dubious Preponderance", Mark D. Janis

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Zurko, Gartside, And Lee: How Might They Affect Patent Prosecution?, Thomas G. Field Jr

Law Faculty Scholarship

Interactions between the PTO and the courts are more complex than for most agencies. PTO decisions may be challenged not only directly but also collaterally. In the latter context, the Supreme Court has sometimes been critical of the lax standards applied when issuing patents.

While being upheld in collateral review is the ultimate issue of concern to patentees, patents must first be obtained. Thus, this paper focuses on direct challenges to PTO actions--and more specifically, on the review arising under 35 U.S.C. §§ 141-44 as addressed in Zurko, Gartside, and Lee.

Since the Supreme Court reversed the …

The Federal Circuit: A Continuing Experiment Specialization, Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comment: Experiments After The Federal Circuit, John F. Duffy

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

2004 Update - 180-Day Exclusivity Under The Hatch-Waxman Amendments To The Federal Food, Drug, And Cosmetic Act, Erika Lietzan

Faculty Publications

This article updates the author's previously published article on the topic, provides some insight into recent events in this area of the law, and specifies a few minor items that were noted incorrectly in the earlier work.

Taxing The New Intellectual Property Right, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

Articles

Current, albeit arbitrary, rules exist governing the tax treatment of traditional forms of intellectual property, such as patents, trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks, and trade names. While tax principles exist for these traditional intellectual property and intangible rights, specific tax rules do not exist for new intellectual property rights, such as domain names, that are emerging with the arrival of global electronic commerce transactions on the Internet. This article explores the proper tax treatment of domain name registration and acquisition costs, addressing these parallel questions? Are domain names merely variations of traditional forms of intellectual property and other intangible rights to …

An Efficient Way To Improve Patent Quality For Plant Varieties, Katherine E. White

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Exactly Backwards: Exceptionalism And The Federal Circuit, Polk Wagner

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

This short essay critically evaluates the current proposals, most closely associated with Dan Burk and Mark Lemley, that the patent law should increasingly become technology-specific - that is, that the law should reflect different rules for different technological areas or industries. I make three points. The first is to point out that descriptive claims of a fundamental technological-exceptionalism (what I call "macro-exceptionalism") in the patent law are not well supported, once one sets aside the small factual variability ("micro-exceptionalism") built into the legal standards. Second, using empirical data from the development of claim construction jurisprudence and the patterns of en …

Judicial Constellations: Guiding Principles As Navigational Aids, Honorable Paul Michel

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Law, Technology And The Arts Symposium: The Past, Present And Future Of The Federal Circuit - Introduction, Gerald Korngold

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comment: Exactly Backwards: Exceptionalism And The Federal Circuit, R. Polk Wagner

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Doctrine Of Equivalents And Claiming The Future After Festo, Joshua D. Sarnoff

Joshua D Sarnoff