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Allocating Patent Rights Between Earlier And Later Inventions, Charles Adams

Charles W. Adams

Allocating Patent Rights Between Earlier and Later Inventions By Charles W. Adams Abstract The patent statutes expressly authorize patents for improvements to earlier inventions, but they do not address the allocation of rights between the patents for the original inventions and the after-arising technology. From an economic standpoint, the allocation of patent rights should depend on the relative contribution of the original inventor and the improver and on the effect that the allocation would have on their respective incentives. Improvements on earlier inventions may give rise to blocking patents in which the permission of both the original inventor and the …