Law Commons^™

The Federal Circuit As An Institution, Ryan G. Vacca

Law Faculty Scholarship

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is a unique institution. Unlike other circuit courts, the Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction is bound by subject area rather than geography, and it was created to address a unique set of problems specific to patent law. These characteristics have affected its institutional development and made the court one of the most frequently studied appellate courts. This chapter examines this development and describes the evolving qualities that have helped the Federal Circuit distinguish itself, for better or worse, as an institution.

This chapter begins with an overview of the concerns existing before creation of …

Three New Metrics For Patent Examiner Activity: Office Actions Per Grant Ratio (Ogr), Office Actions Per Disposal Ratio (Odr), And Grant To Examiner Ratio (Ger), Shine Tu

Law Faculty Scholarship

The current metric for examiner prosecution activity is allowance rate, which is calculated by dividing the total number of allowances by the sum of the allowances and abandonments (allowance rate = total allowance/(total allowances total abandonments)). Importantly, however, allowance rates do not consider an examiner’s pending docket. Specifically, allowance rates do not fully capture if the examiner is simply writing office actions thereby prolonging prosecution or allowing cases. This study rectifies this failure by creating and analyzing a dataset that captures every active examiner’s current docket. Calculating the Office Action per Grant Ratio (OGR = Total # of Office Actions/Total …

Unh School Of Law Ip Library: 20th Anniversary Reflection On The Only Academic Ip Library In The United States, Jon R. Cavicchi

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] The UNH School of Law Intellectual Property Library celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year. It is a fortuitous time for this look back and for strategic considerations for the future. This anniversary comes at a time in the history of legal education when conditions over the past few years have intensified the analysis of mission and resources for law school libraries. This article is a retrospective review of the history and dynamics surrounding the founding and first twenty years of growth. It is also an analysis of the future growth and mission of the IP Library during times that …

Invalidated Patents And Associated Patent Examiners, Shine Tu

Law Faculty Scholarship

This study attempts to determine whether there are common

characteristics between examiners who issue invalidated patents. This

study uses two new patent databases that code for nearly 1.7 million

patents and approximately one thousand patents that were litigated to

a 'final" judgment between 2010 and 2011. This study finds that

approximately one-third of patents that are litigated to final judgment

are found invalid. Most invalidated patents are found in technology

centers 1600, 2600, and 2700, which correspond to biotechnology and

organic chemistry, communications, and computer science, respectively.

Most patents are invalidated on prior art-type novelty and obviousness

grounds. This study …

Ip Basics: Advice On Ip Careers For Those Without Technical Backgrounds, Thomas G. Field Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] If you can spend three more years in school, intellectual property offers a wide range of interesting and rewarding careers. Those without technical backgrounds, however, should not pursue an intellectual property career blindly. Unless your undergraduate degree is in a physical science or engineering -- or you have at least a masters (and probably some experience) in biotechnology, patent opportunities will be slim. As discussed in more detail below, people without technical training are more apt to deal with copyrights, trademarks and special contracts such as licenses or franchise agreements. Yet intellectual property law covering non-technical subjects is often …

Food For Thought: Genetically Modified Seeds As De Facto Standard Essential Patents, Benjamin M. Cole, Brent J. Horton, Ryan G. Vacca

Law Faculty Scholarship

For several years, courts have been improperly calculating damages in cases involving the unlicensed use of genetically-modified (GM) seed technology. In particular, when courts determine patent damages based on the hypothetical negotiation method, they err in exaggerating these damages to a point where no rational negotiator would agree. In response, we propose a limited affirmative defense of an implied license due to the patent’s status as a de facto standard essential patent. To be classified as a de facto standard essential patent, the farmer must prove three elements that reflect the peculiarities of GM seeds used in farming: (1) dominance, …

Patent Examiners And Litigation Outcomes, Shine Tu

Law Faculty Scholarship

Conventional wisdom argues that unnecessary litigation of low quality patents hinders innovation, and that the PTO could play a role with its high grant rates. Accordingly, it is important to answer these questions: (1) which patent examiners are issuing litigated patents, (2) are examiners who are "rubber stamping" patents issuing litigated patents at a disproportionately higher rate, and (3) are examiners with less experience issuing more litigated patents? In sum, do patent examiners who issue litigated patents have common characteristics? Intuition would argue that those examiners who issue the most patents (approximately one patent every three business days) would exhibit …

Patent Landscape Of Helminth Vaccines And Related Technologies, Jon R. Cavicchi, Stanley P. Kowalski, John Schroeder, Rayna Burke, Jillian Michaud-King

Law Faculty Scholarship

Executive Summary This report focuses on patent landscape analysis of technologies related to vaccines targeting parasitic worms, also known as helminths. These technologies include methods of formulating vaccines, methods of producing of subunits, the composition of complete vaccines, and other technologies that have the potential to aid in a global response to this pathogen. The purpose of this patent landscape study was to search, identify, and categorize patent documents that are relevant to the development of vaccines that can efficiently promote the development of protective immunity against helminths. The search strategy used keywords which the team felt would be general …

Intellectual Property And Public Health – A White Paper, Ryan G. Vacca, James Ming Chen, Jay Dratler Jr., Thomas Folsom, Timothy S. Hall, Yaniv Heled, Frank A. Pasquale Iii, Elizabeth A. Reilly, Jeffrey Samuels, Katherine J. Strandburg, Kara W. Swanson, Andrew W. Torrance, Katharine A. Van Tassel

Law Faculty Scholarship

On October 26, 2012, the University of Akron School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property and Technology hosted its Sixth Annual IP Scholars Forum. In attendance were thirteen legal scholars with expertise and an interest in IP and public health who met to discuss problems and potential solutions at the intersection of these fields. This report summarizes this discussion by describing the problems raised, areas of agreement and disagreement between the participants, suggestions and solutions made by participants and the subsequent evaluations of these suggestions and solutions. Led by the moderator, participants at the Forum focused generally on three broad …

Patent Reform And Best Mode: A Signal To The Patent Office Or A Step Toward Elimination?, Ryan G. Vacca

Law Faculty Scholarship

On September 16, 2011, President Obama signed the America Invents Act (AIA), the first major overhaul of the patent system in nearly sixty years. This article analyzes the recent change to patent law's best mode requirement under the AIA. Before the AIA, patent applicants were required, at the time of submitting their application, to disclose the best mode of carrying out the invention as contemplated by the inventor. A failure to disclose the best mode was a basis for a finding of invalidity of the relevant claims or could render the entire patent unenforceable under the doctrine of inequitable conduct. …

Acting Like An Administrative Agency: The Federal Circuit En Banc, Ryan G. Vacca

Law Faculty Scholarship

When Congress created the Federal Circuit in 1982, it thought it was creating a court of appeals. Little did it know that it was also creating a quasi-administrative agency that would engage in substantive rulemaking and set policy in a manner substantially similar to administrative agencies. In this Article, I examine the Federal Circuit's practices when it orders a case to be heard en banc and illustrate how these practices cause the Federal Circuit to look very much like an administrative agency engaging in substantive rulemaking. The number and breadth of questions the Federal Circuit agrees to hear en banc …

Allocating Intellectual Property Rights Between Parties, Ashlyn J. Lembree

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.