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Full-Text Articles in Law
Privilege-Wise And Patent (And Trade-Secret)-Foolish?: How The Courts' Misapplication Of The Military And State Secrets Privilege Violates The Constitution And Endangers National Security, Davida H. Isaacs, Robert M. Farley
Privilege-Wise And Patent (And Trade-Secret)-Foolish?: How The Courts' Misapplication Of The Military And State Secrets Privilege Violates The Constitution And Endangers National Security, Davida H. Isaacs, Robert M. Farley
Faculty Scholarship
It is every inventor's nightmare: a valuable idea, stolen, with no legal recourse. Yet that is precisely what happened in Lucent v. Crater, where the Federal Circuit permitted the Federal Government to defeat the inventors' claims using the military and state secrets privilege. In light of the recent upsurge in the Government's invocation of this privilege, it is time to scrutinize more carefully courts' highly deferential response to its use. There is little question that the executive branch must be able to invoke the privilege in order to ensure that national security is not imperiled by public disclosure of information. …
Using Patents To Protect Traditional Knowledge, Jay Erstling
Using Patents To Protect Traditional Knowledge, Jay Erstling
Faculty Scholarship
The role that intellectual property can play in the protection of traditional knowledge (TK) has been on the international agenda for more than ten years, with little to show for it. For example, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has provided a forum for international policy debate on the subject since 1998, and the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) has held meetings on draft provisions for the protection of TK against misappropriation and misuse since 2001. Similarly, since 1999 the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been examining the most effective means …
Growing Pains In The Administrative State: The Patent Office’S Troubled Quest For Managerial Control, Arti K. Rai
Growing Pains In The Administrative State: The Patent Office’S Troubled Quest For Managerial Control, Arti K. Rai
Faculty Scholarship
In the last ten years, the workload of the Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") has increased dramatically. Complaints about the PTO's ability to manage its workload have increased in tandem. Interestingly, although Congress has explicitly given the PTO rulemaking authority over the processing of patent applications, and withheld from it authority over "substantive" patent law, the PTO has arguably enjoyed more success in influencing substantive law than in executing direct efforts to manage its workload. This Article explores the multiple, mutually reinforcing reasons for this anomaly. It argues that although there are good reasons to be frustrated with the PTO's …
Sequential Innovation, Patents, And Imitation, James Bessen, Eric Maskin
Sequential Innovation, Patents, And Imitation, James Bessen, Eric Maskin
Faculty Scholarship
How could such industries as software, semiconductors, and computers have been so innovative despite historically weak patent protection? We argue that if innovation is both sequential and complementary--as it certainly has been in those industries--competition can increase firms' future profits thus offsetting short-term dissipation of rents. A simple model also shows that in such a dynamic industry, patent protection may reduce overall innovation and social welfare. The natural experiment that occurred when patent protection was extended to software in the 1980?s provides a test of this model. Standard arguments would predict that R&D intensity and productivity should have increased among …