Patentees sometimes use fraudulently procured patents to secure illegal monopolies, excluding efficient competitors and raising prices to consumers. While antitrust doctrine condemns the acquisition of monopoly power through fraudulently procured patents, antitrust liability hinges on whether...

We have two conceptions of the relationship between antitrust and patent: in tension or complementary. In reality, both conceptions have an element of truth; the relationship is multidimensional. The relationship between antitrust law and patent law involves a series of trade-offs: How much...

Antitrust law and patent law assume that an invalid patent cannot distort competition unless the patentee enforces the patent by initiating infringement litigation or explicitly threatening to do so. The Article argues that invalid patents can destroy competition - even without such enforcement...

Patent law is the cornerstone of American innovation policy. The relationship between patents and innovation, however, is more complicated than the simple explanation that patents reward innovators. Patent holders sometimes engage in conduct that can reduce innovation. This article examines one...

Patentees overwhelmingly lose their cases, despite a seeming host of procedural advantages. The same is not true of other IP plaintiffs. Why? In this article, I suggest that the explanation lies in the "fractioning" of patent law into smaller and smaller issues. Claim construction after Markman...

More than 2.5 million United States patents have been issued in the last twenty years. While these patents are spread across all industries, a large percentage are concentrated in the information technology (IT) industries, and others in biotechnology. The prevalence of patents in these...

While the theory of the patent system is premised on the idea that patents will be used to exclude competitors, only a tiny fraction of patents are ever enforced. Legal and economic scholars have theorized as to how to identify valuable patents based on their individual characteristics. In this...

The confluence of two significant developments in modern patent practice leads me to write a paper with such a provocative title. The first development is the rise of hold-up as a primary component of patent litigation and patent licensing. The second development in the last three decades is the...

Patent law gives patent owners not just the right to prevent others from copying their ideas, but the power to control the use of their idea even by those who independently develop a technology with no knowledge of the patent or the patentee. In an important paper, Samson Vermont challenges this...