Parties frequently obtain patents for one purpose, only to use those patents for another. This Article calls such divergences between parties' initial motivations to obtain patents and those patents' predominant uses later on “patent schisms.”Because traditional patent law theories typically...

In the last decade, a new generation of socio-legal studies has begun to inquire into the dynamics of norm making in the era of globalization. New studies show that national and transnational actors are involved in cyclical disputes with results dependent on circumstance, personalities, and...

Patent scope is probably one of the most debated issues in patent law generally and it has recently gained new contours thanks to the substantial scientific improvements in genetics and modern biology, which have resulted in the creation of what we now address as the biotech industry. Indeed,...

Although patents are the prototypical type of protection that most people consider applicable to protecting drugs, patents are just the most-established and well-known method available to protect drugs from competition. However, there are other types of mechanisms in regulatory laws that provide...

The amount of greenhouse gas emissions and consequent climate changes and social responses will depend substantially upon the rapid development and widespread dissemination of a wide variety of new mitigation and adaptation technologies. The international approach adopted by the UN Framework...

Planet earth is host to a dazzling variety of living organisms. This diversity of life, or – biodiversity, is vital to the survival and prosperity of humanity, supplying such vital amenities as food, clothing, shelter, natural biochemicals useful in medicine, industry, and agriculture, and...

Patent protection for genetic enhancements would tend to spur genetic innovation, but would tend to limit access to those genetic enhancements through discriminatory mechanisms such as price and favoritism. The patent system would likely ensure high rates of genetic enhancement innovation,...

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, all countries having patent systems required patentable inventions to be both new and useful. Now those two fundamental requirements have been joined by a third: Patentable inventions must also be nonobvious. The nonobviousness requirement is...