Law Commons^™

An Offensive Weapon?: An Empirical Analysis Of The 'Sword' Of State Sovereign Immunity In State-Owned Patents, Tejas N. Narechania

Tejas N. Narechania

Forward To The Past, Michael Risch

Michael Risch

The Supreme Court’s decision in Bilski v. Kappos - banning all patents claiming ‘‘abstract ideas,’’ but refusing to categorically bar any particular type of patent - represents a return to the Court’s past patentable subject matter jurisprudence. In so returning, the Court determined that business methods could potentially be patentable. This Supreme Court Review article discusses what is essentially a restart: lower courts and the PTO must remake the law using the same precedent that led to the rigid rules rejected by the Court in Bilski. Part I discusses Mr. Bilski’s patent application and the Court’s ruling that it is …

Ip Misuse As Foreclosure, Christina Bohannan

Christina Bohannan

In an age of IP expansionism, the doctrine most explicitly concerned with limiting IP overreaching has no defensible basis in IP policy. “Misuse” relates to the IP holder’s use of licenses and other arrangements to obtain rights “beyond the scope” of a statutory IP grant, but the doctrine has not established adequate principles for identifying the practices that should be condemned. The misuse doctrine evolved in patent law and concerned the tying of patented and unpatented goods. Courts held that such tying violated federal patent policy by expanding the statutory monopoly to include a second product not covered by the …

Regulatory Approval Of Follow-On Biologics: Takings Implications Of Twelve Years Of Market Exclusivity And Future Conflict In Determinations Of Bioequivalence, Aileen Mcgill

Aileen M McGill

Congressional interest in the availability of low-cost pharmaceuticals has focused on the increasingly important class of drugs known as “biologics.” Biologics are protein-based pharmaceuticals derived from living matter or manufactured in living cells, which are more complex than the chemically synthesized molecules found in most pharmaceutical products. While there are many scientific differences between small-molecule pharmaceuticals and biologics, one of the most significant is the inability to reproduce them in generic form, creating a legislative division between generic entry for standard pharmaceuticals governed by the Hatch-Waxman Act and a similar approval process for “follow-on biologics” (FOBs). With the passage of …

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

Robin C Feldman

Patent Challenges And Royalty Inflation, Michael Risch

Michael Risch

Eliminating bad patents is supposed to be a good thing, and so federal law allows any interested party to challenge a patent's validity almost any time. But the law goes a step further than merely conferring broad challenge rights. It also makes them nearly impossible to contract away. Instead, federal law voids any agreement not to challenge a patent. While a contract ordinarily signifies a final resolution of all issues covered by its terms, no such peace exists in patent licensing. This inalienability of patent challenge rights comes at a cost, a cost borne by many patent licensees and their …

Reinventing Usefulness, Michael Risch

Michael Risch

Patent law includes one of this country’s oldest continuous statutory requirements: since 1790, and without variance, inventors are only entitled to patent “new and useful” inventions. While “newness” receives constant attention and debate, usefulness has been largely ignored. Usefulness has transformed into the toothless and misunderstood “utility” doctrine, which requires that patents only have a bare minimum potential for use. This article seeks to reinvent patentable usefulness. It is the first comprehensive look at usefulness and it reasons that a core benefit of the requirement is to aid in the commercialization of inventions. The article then proposes two ways that …

A Brief Defense Of The Written Description Requirement, Michael Risch

Michael Risch

This essay provides a brief defense of the much maligned "written description" requirement in patent law. Many argue that there is no such requirement, and that a patent specification that enables a person having ordinary skill in the art (the PHOSITA) to make and use the invention is sufficient, even if the specification contains no description of the invention. This essay briefly describes the dispute, and then raises an important but under-theorized argument in favor of a separate written description requirement. The essay accepts the persuasive grammatical reading of the statute proposed by opponents of a separate written description requirement. …

Trade Secret Law And Information Development Incentives, Michael Risch

Michael Risch

Trade secrets differ from other forms of intellectual property in many subtle ways that affect incentives to invest in information development. These differences relate not only to the types of information protected, but also to the requirements one must meet to protect that type of information. The various divergences and intersections of trade secret laws with other intellectual property laws lead to differences in the amount and types of investments companies make in developing information. This chapter explores five types of differential incentives associated with trade secret law: - Trade secret law v. no trade secret law - Trade secret …

Ordinary Creativity In Patent Law: The Artist Within The Scientist, Amy L. Landers

Amy L Landers

Patent law is intended to promote the creativity of scientists and engi-neers. The system recognizes that the work of the individual is the engine that ultimately increases the state of scientific knowledge. As economist Paul Romer recognized, “Technological advance comes from things that people do.” Furthering creativity represents the constitutional, theoretical and doc-trinal heart of patent law. Yet the field has not meaningfully evaluated the fundamental question of what creativity is. Using theories from psychology, sociology, history and the philosophy of science, this work examines and pro-poses how patent law can formulate a legal conception of creativity.

To undertake this …

Ordinary Creativity In Patent Law: The Artist Within The Scientist, Amy L. Landers

Amy L. Landers

Patent law is intended to promote the creativity of scientists and engi-neers. The system recognizes that the work of the individual is the engine that ultimately increases the state of scientific knowledge. As economist Paul Romer recognized, “Technological advance comes from things that people do.” Furthering creativity represents the constitutional, theoretical and doc-trinal heart of patent law. Yet the field has not meaningfully evaluated the fundamental question of what creativity is. Using theories from psychology, sociology, history and the philosophy of science, this work examines and pro-poses how patent law can formulate a legal conception of creativity.

To undertake this …

Patent Valuation Theory And The Economics Of Improvement, Amy L. Landers

Amy L. Landers

In her response to Professor Golden's Principles of Patent Remedies, Professor Landers identifies three threads that underlie the debate on patent remedies. First, patent value may be difficult to define because of certain indeterminacies. Second, economic and technological contingencies may distort the amounts paid for patents. Third, principles of adaptation and implementation might bring the field to a theoretical consensus about patent value. After analyzing Prof. Golden’s principles in the context of each thread, Prof. Landers proposes that, in order to bridge the differences in current theoretical viewpoints, the explicit addition of the economics of improvement is necessary.