India’s emergence in the world economy over the last decade, has often, in popular discourse, been attributed, at least to a large extent, to its sustained efforts towards technological learning and capacity building. In this paper we present an overview of India’s technological trajectory...

Until recently, successful patent plaintiffs would almost always be awarded injunctions against future infringement. Thanks to a recent change in remedies jurisprudence, however, patent plaintiffs today are often denied injunctions and awarded, instead, ongoing royalties. This change was made...

Two related trends characterize the recent past: value propositions are migrating from the physical to the informational, and value creation is shifting from firms to consumers. These two trends meet in the phenomenon of ‘consumer generated intellectual property' (CGIP). In this paper, we...

This paper examines the background of Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement, the nature of this obligation on developed country Members that pertains to the promotion of technology transfer to LDC Members and how it is being implemented and how such implementation is being monitored in the TRIPS...

This Article explores the claiming systems of patent and copyright law. It first develops a two-dimensional taxonomy: claiming can be either peripheral or central and either by characteristic or by exemplar. Patent law has principally adopted a system of peripheral claiming, requiring patentees...

An “invention,” as used in the United States patent laws, refers to anything made by man that employs or harnesses a law of nature or a naturally occurring substance for human benefit. A watermill, for instance, harnesses the power of gravity to run machinery. But legal methods, such as tax...

Patent scope is central to the sale of ideas, which can spur economic growth and provide significant gains from trade. Awarding an inventor a patent on a new idea partially solves a commitment problem that would otherwise prevent the inventor from selling the idea. (Arrow, 1962). In the absence...

We investigate how international patent activity enables firms from emerging economies to thrive in the global marketplace. We match Chinese customs data to US patent records, and leverage the quasi-random assignment of USPTO patent examiners to identify the causal effect of a US patent grant on...

Technology transfer is deeply embedded in the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). Several provisions address technology transfer, which constitute an essential part of the efforts made by the TRIPS negotiators to strike a balance between the...

We study the effect of the fragmentation of intellectual property rights on optimal patent design. The major finding is that when several complementary innovative components must be assembled to operate a new technology, the patentability requirements should be stronger than in the case of...