This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of patent law’s “pioneer invention doctrine” in almost two decades. Since the early 1990s, patent scholars have unanimously reported that case law favoring so-called “pioneer” patents – i.e., those disclosing the most...

Studies of the costs and benefits of university patent ownership have, to date, focused on life sciences technology. Increasingly, however, many of the most lucrative university-owned patents relate to computing and telecommunications, not genes or pharmaceuticals. In 2007, a University of...

This essay criticizes university policies that allow institutions to take ownership of their students' inventions. This is an increasingly common occurrence that receives far less attention than it deserves. It is also an important, but virtually unknown, part of the Facebook success story....