This Essay identifies a new boundary in patent law: invention creation activity and explores the possible challenges and opportunities it may facilitate. The boundary currently is neither robust nor extensive, and whether and under what circumstances it should exist at all is open to debate

The United States provides companies engaged in drug discovery and marketing with a variety of statutory tools to maximize the exclusivity period for their products and delay generic competition in the marketplace. These tools include patent protection and patent term restoration, as well as...

Generally speaking, a patent gives its owner the right to exclude others from making using selling, offering to sell, or importing the invention during the term of the patent. If, however, two or more inventors come up with the same invention and file for a patent, the system needs a way to...

This Article provides a fresh perspective on the Bayh-Dole debate by focusing on the impact of patent novelty rules on academic discourse. The Article proposes that to begin to reverse an observed deterioration in disclosure norms, flexibilities must be built into the patent system so that...