Most of the academic and policy attention in the past two decades has been focused on patent holdup theory that posits how weak patents asserted under the threat of injunctive relief can extract greater value than their true worth. This is peculiar given that the eBay ruling in 2006, and its...

Many patent applications are rejected upon initial submission, but they are almost never rejected with absolute finality. Further, subsequent to filing its original application a patent applicant might wish to write an application with broader or somewhat different claims, or perhaps add claims...

The Federal Circuit is the most visible point of the intersection between competition and patent law. When a single case contains both competition and patent issues, precedents of that court, including those pertaining to governing legal burdens or presumptions, will be critical. It is worth...

Software patents not only do no promote innovation, they instead reduce it. The U.S. Executive branch has recommended against recognizing software patents, and the Supreme Court has never rejected a test (its physical-transformation test) that would invalidate pure business method and software...

This paper explores the workings of the patent system in the context of the generation of new pharmaceutical products. First it identifies the relevant characteristics of the patent system and its relation to the market. The paper concedes that, in general, the patent system is probably the best...

Public international law scholarship has developed metatheories to account for power. However, few scholars have tested these theories in contemporary problems involving both private and public international law. By examining global intellectual property problems, this article clarifies a...

This Note applies the concept of "paradigm shifts" from the history and philosophy of science to describe how patents on biomedical research tools - inputs to basic research - can create conditions conducive to fundamental advances in scientific theory. Patents on research tools can prevent...

Patent trolls (or sharks) are small patent holding individuals or firms who trap R&D intense manufacturers in patent infringement situations in order to receive damage awards for the illegitimate use of their technology. While of great concern to management, their existence and impact for both...

In recent years, the Federal Circuit and the Patent Office have characterized the legal doctrines governing the patentability of DNA molecules as essentially settled. This Article argues that the factual premises underlying those doctrines are increasingly being undermined by ongoing...

Recently there has been an explosion of patent litigation in the high-tech sector as companies buy up patent portfolios and use them to force settlement agreements from competitors. This has led to an environment in which “patent trolling” is prevalent, and smaller players are pushed out of...