Generally, in order to infringe a U.S. patent, the entire patented invention must be practiced within the United States. However, as technology evolves it is becoming harder to contain inventions within national borders. Specifically, the advancement of networking and communications technologies...

This symposium article discusses issues raised for patent processes and policy created by inventions generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Using insights from economic research on intellectual property rights, it argues in favor of allowing patent protection for AI-generated inventions....

The debate surrounding escalating prescription drug prices has increasingly focused on the legitimacy of the practice of brand-name manufacturers receiving patent protection on peripheral features of the drug such as the route of administration, as opposed to just the active-ingredient itself....

Using application-level data from the Patent Office from 2001 to 2012, merged with personnel data on patent examiners, we explore the extent to which the key decision of examiners--whether to allow a patent--is shaped by the granting styles of her surrounding peers. Taking a number of...

Agency heads, who have the primary responsibility for setting an agency's policy preferences, have a variety of tools by which they attempt to minimize the discretion of their staff officials in an effort to ensure agency policy preferences are consistently applied. One such mechanism is...