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Patent

Selected Works

Robin C Feldman

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Empirical Evidence Of Drug Pricing Games - A Citizen's Pathway Gone Astray, Robin C. Feldman, Evan Frondorf, Andrew Cordova Dec 2015

Empirical Evidence Of Drug Pricing Games - A Citizen's Pathway Gone Astray, Robin C. Feldman, Evan Frondorf, Andrew Cordova

Robin C Feldman

The FDA’s citizen petition process was created in the 1970s as part of an effort to fashion more participatory regimes, in which ordinary citizens could access the administrative process. The theoretical underpinnings hypothesize that a participatory structure will prevent regulatory agencies from being captured by the very industries they were intended to police. Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that the FDA’s citizen petition process may have taken a different turn. This empirical study explores whether pharmaceutical companies are systematically using citizen petitions to try to delay the approval of generic competitors. Delaying generic entry of a drug — even by a …

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Do Patent Licensing Demands Mean Innovation?, Robin C. Feldman, Mark A. Lemley Dec 2014

Do Patent Licensing Demands Mean Innovation?, Robin C. Feldman, Mark A. Lemley

Robin C Feldman

A commonly offered justification for patent trolls or non-practicing entities (NPEs) is that they serve as a middleman, facilitating innovation and bringing new technology from inventors to those who can implement it. We survey those involved in patent licensing to see how often patent license demands actually led to innovation or technology transfer. We find that very few patent license demands actually lead to new innovation; most simply involve payment for the freedom to keep doing what the licensee was already doing. Surprisingly, this is true not only of NPE licenses but even of licenses from product-producing companies and universities. …

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Patent Demands & Startup Companies: The View From The Venture Capital Community, Robin C. Feldman Dec 2013

Patent Demands & Startup Companies: The View From The Venture Capital Community, Robin C. Feldman

Robin C Feldman

This paper presents a study of patent demands against venture-backed startups, conducted through members of the National Venture Capital Association and their portfolio companies. The results of surveying 200 venture capitalists and their portfolio companies provide strong indications of the impact that patent demands are having on the venture-backed community. Both the companies and the venture capitalists overwhelming believe that patent demands have a negative impact on the venture-backed community, with all or most of those assertions coming from entities whose core activity involves licensing or litigating patents. These impacts are described in terms of the specific costs expended by …

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A Conversation On Judicial Decision-Making, Robin Feldman Aug 2012

A Conversation On Judicial Decision-Making, Robin Feldman

Robin C Feldman

Both breathtakingly broad and minutely particular, the doctrine of patentable subject matter asks us to consider which innovations are of the type for which we might grant protection. Do we include living creatures, for example, or genes? Are computer algorithms included, and just what is an algorithm anyway? These are the types of questions that the Supreme Court has considered in a number of recent cases on patentable subject matter.

Looking closely at the recent cases, a fascinating conversation emerges between the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit. It is a conversation not just about the nature of patents, but …

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Intellectual Property Wrongs, Robin Feldman Aug 2012

Intellectual Property Wrongs, Robin Feldman

Robin C Feldman

Intellectual property has become a pervasive presence in society. Seeping into every nook and cranny of American life, intellectual property casts a protective haze over everything from the words of an email to the sequence of genes. Increasingly, these rights are being pressed into the service of schemes that have little to do with the advancement of societal goals and much to do with societal waste. What do we, as a society, do when the rights that we have created with such lofty goals and noble heart are diverted toward less admirable pursuits, that is, when IP rights become the …

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The Gao 500: Effects Of Non-Practicing Entities On Patent Litigation, Robin C. Feldman, Sara Jeruss, Joshua Walker Dec 2011

The Gao 500: Effects Of Non-Practicing Entities On Patent Litigation, Robin C. Feldman, Sara Jeruss, Joshua Walker

Robin C Feldman

Any discussion of flaws in the United States patent system inevitably turns to the system’s modern villain: non-practicing entities, known more colorfully as patent trolls. For many years, however, discussions about non practicing entities have been long on speculation and short on data.

In 2011 Congress directed the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office to study the effects of non-practicing entities on patent litigation. Our study was performed at the request of the GAO, examining patent lawsuits filed over the past five years. The data confirm in a dramatic fashion what many scholars and commentators have suspected: patent monetization entities play a …

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Whose Body Is It Anyway? Human Cells And The Strange Effects Of Property And Intellectual Property Law, Robin C. Feldman May 2011

Whose Body Is It Anyway? Human Cells And The Strange Effects Of Property And Intellectual Property Law, Robin C. Feldman

Robin C Feldman

Whatever else I might own in this world, it would seem intuitively obvious that I own the cells of my body. Where else could the notion of ownership begin, other than with the components of the tangible corpus that all would recognize as "me?" The law, however, does not view the issue so neatly and clearly, particularly when cells are no long in your body. As so often happens in law, we have reached this point, not by design, but by the piecemeal development of disparate notions that, when gathered together, form a strange and disconcerting picture. 

This article examines …

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The Intellectual Property Landscape For Ips Cells, Robin C. Feldman Dec 2009

The Intellectual Property Landscape For Ips Cells, Robin C. Feldman

Robin C Feldman

Beginning in 2006, induced pluripotent stem cells have raised the tantalizing possibility that stem cell research could move forward without the significant moral and ethical dilemmas that have paralyzed the field. These cells, known as iPS cells, originate from adult somatic cells, but function in a manner that is almost equivalent to embryonic stem cells. If iPS cell research lives up to its promise, stem cell research, diagnostics, and treatment could be accomplished without destroying or in any way interfering with human embryos or their development.

While we may be entering a historic moment in stem cell research, we are …

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Law's Misguided Love Affair With Science, Robin Feldman Feb 2008

Law's Misguided Love Affair With Science, Robin Feldman

Robin C Feldman

The allure of science has always captivated members of the legal profession. Its siren’s song has followed us throughout much of American legal history. We look to science to rescue us from the experience of uncertainty and the discomfort of difficult legal decisions, and we are constantly disappointed.

The notion of what constitutes science and what it would take to make law more scientific varies across time. What does not vary is our constant return to the well. We are constantly seduced into believing that some new science will provide answers to law’s dilemmas, and we are constantly disappointed.

This …

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Differing Shades Of Meaning, Robin C. Feldman Jul 2007

Differing Shades Of Meaning, Robin C. Feldman

Robin C Feldman

The relationship between patent law and antitrust law has challenged legal minds since the emergence of antitrust law in the late 19th century. In reductionist form, the two concepts pose a natural contradiction: One encourages monopoly while the other restricts it. To avoid uncomfortable dissonance, the trend across time has been to try to harmonize patent and antitrust law. In particular, harmonization efforts in recent decades have led Congress and the courts to engage in a series of attempts, some aborted and some half-formed, to graft antitrust doctrines onto patent law. These efforts have failed to resolve the conflicts.

This …

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