Law Commons^™

Firms' Global Patent Strategies In An Emerging Technology, Andrea Fernandez-Ribas

Andrea Fernandez-Ribas

Despite international patenting can be a costly and risky investment, an increasing number of firms patent proprietary technologies in foreign countries. This paper explores trends of global patenting in a new domain of technology characterized by rapid globalization. The research setting consists of the population of U.S.-based Large and Small and Mid-Sized firms (SMEs) filing nanotechnology-related patent applications at the World International Patent Office (WIPO) during 1996-2006.

This paper appears in: Science and Innovation Policy, 2009 Atlanta Conference on Publication Date: 2-3 Oct. 2009 On page(s): 1-5 ISBN: 978-1-4244-5041-1 INSPEC Accession Number: 11035266 DOI: 10.1109/ACSIP.2009.5367863 Posted online: 2009-12-28 12:00:57.0

Of Mice And Men: Why An Anticommons Has Not Emerged In The Biotechnological Realm, Chester J. Shiu

Chester J Shiu

In 1998 Michael Heller and Rebecca Eisenberg posited that excessive patenting of fundamental biomedical innovations might create a “tragedy of the anticommons.” A decade later, their dire predictions have not come to pass, an outcome which calls much of the legal scholarship on the topic into question. This Article proposes that legal commentators’ theoretical arguments have largely ignored two very important factors. First, the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—the single most important actor in the biomedical research industry—has played an active role in keeping the biomedical research domain open. In particular, regardless of what the current patent regime may theoretically …

Article 53(B) Epc: A Challenge To The Novartis Theory Of European Patent History, Justine Pila

Justine Pila

In this article the authoritative ('Novartis/transgenic plant systems') interpretation of the Article 53(b) EPC exclusion from European patentability of plant and animal varieties, and essentially biological processes for the creation of plants and animals, is considered, and its significance for the trend of EPO jurisprudence and legitimacy of the EC Biotechnology Patenting Directive noted. The Enlarged Board of Appeal's justification for that interpretation in 'Novartis' with reference to the exclusion's legislative history is challenged, and an alternative theory of that history proposed, based on a thorough analysis of the unpublished 'travaux preparatoires' for the Strasbourg and European Patent Conventions. In …

Chemical Products And Proportionate Patents Before And After Generics V Lundbeck, Justine Pila

Justine Pila

In Generics Ltd v Lundbeck A/S (2009) UKHL 12, the House of Lords affirmed the validity of a patent for a chemical product - an isolated stereoisomer - supported by a method of producing the product, but protecting the chemical product as such independent of the method by which it was made. In so doing, it appears to have resolved a longstanding tension between granting patents for chemical products and requiring that the scope of monopoly rights equiperate with the disclosure in the specification. It also appears to have rejected the Biogen Inc v Medeva plc (1997) RPC 1 (HL) …