Law Commons^™

Patent Eligible Subject Matter In The Biotechnological Arts, Benjamin A. Keim

Benjamin A Keim

This paper compares the patentability of biotechnology inventions under the laws of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Five specific categories of biotechnology are examined: genes and DNA, microorganisms, plants and animals, human embryonic stem cells, and medical methods. The WTO-TRIPS agreement establishes the underlying framework followed by these countries. All of these counties allow patenting of genes and DNA as well as microorganisms. Plant and animal patents are allowed in all the countries except Canada. Surgical and medical methods are only patentable in the U.S. and Australia. Human embryonic cells are patentable in all jurisdictions, except for …

Bad Science In Search Of “Bad” Patents, Ron D. Katznelson

Ron D. Katznelson

This paper draws attention to fundamental deficiencies in studies that have been relied upon as authoritative sources on patent grant rate comparisons among national patent offices. The two prominent studies analyzed here had employed erroneous methods to compare patent grant rates, resulting in false high indications of such rates at the U.S. patent office compared to foreign patent offices. The three identified categories of analysis errors found in these studies were (i) the misapplication of conditional probability; (ii) miscounting invention applications; and (iii) failure to account for patent obsolescence and application attrition due to the widely differing delays among national …

Teaching Intellectual Property As A Skills Course , Malla Pollack

Malla Pollack

Students can gain experience in practical skills in substantive courses if professors spend the time to create appropriate projects. This article demonstrates by providing reproducible projects involving non-competition agreements, trademarks/trade dress, copyright, and patent. The article also explains the how projects can be expanded and how they can be transposed between counseling and litigation settings.

This paper is part of a symposium entitled “Reflections on Legal Education: How We Teach, How They Learn".

The Impact Of Regional Trade Areas On International Intellectual Property Rights, Brian Cimbolic

Brian Cimbolic

This article seeks to explore the impact of Customs Unions and Free Trade Areas (Regional Trade Areas, or “RTAs”) on both the developing world’s intellectual property concerns and on the international trade principle of most favored nation status. By examining various RTAs such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”) and the upcoming Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (the “FTAA”), along with several smaller RTAs, this paper seeks to show that RTAs are undermining the principles of the International Trade Agreements they are a supposed to be a part of by refusing to apply MFN principles and by …

Re-Evaluating Declaratory Judgment Jurisdiction In Intellectual Property Disputes, Lorelei Ritchie De Larena

Lorelei Ritchie de Larena

The Declaratory Judgment Act of 1934 was quickly tagged by the U.S. Supreme Court as a simple procedural measure. Whether simple or procedural, the addition of the declaratory judgment option has dramatically increased the rights of would-be defendants. This is of special interest in patent law, where without the ability to initiate legal action, an alleged infringer would typically have no recourse but to either drop a lucrative business and lose a massive investment, or to languish in legal limbo while potentially accruing liability for treble damages. The option of a mirror-image lawsuit removes the patentee’s ability to unilaterally decide …

Total Upgrade: Intellectual Property Law Reform In Russia, Sergey Budylin, Yulia Osipova

Sergey Budylin

Russia has undertaken a large-scale intellectual prop-erty (IP) law reform. The reform abolishes most of the ex-isting IP legislation and instead puts all IP issues into the new Fourth Part of the Civil Code. The new legislation was signed into force at the end of 2006, but it was made effective starting from January 1, 2008. While the new leg-islation largely restates, consolidates, and refines the exist-ing legislation, it also introduces some concepts not known to Russian law before (such as “unified technology”). Im-portantly, the new Russian IP legislation addresses issues currently being a matter of international concern (such as …