In patent laws around the world, exclusive licensees often have standing to initiate infringement actions if the relevant patentee(s) is also added to the suit. Australian patent legislation specifies that exclusive licensees have this power and, correspondingly, the definition of ‘exclusive...

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...

Patent scope is one of the important aspects in the debates over “patent quality.” The purported decrease in patent quality over the past decade or two has supposedly led to granting patents of increased breadth (or “overly broad” patents), decreased clarity, and questionable validity....

Policymakers should proceed with a great deal of caution when considering standards mandates, where procurement policies and other government actions may distort a marketplace filled with competing standards and levels of interoperability. Because there are undeniable trade-offs from any...

The Declaratory Judgment Act of 1934 was quickly tagged by the U.S. Supreme Court as a simple procedural measure. Whether simple or procedural, the addition of the declaratory judgment option has dramatically increased the rights of would-be defendants. This is of special interest in patent law,...

This working paper critically examines the pharmaceutical industry and the incentive argument in patent law. It begins by framing an overview of the industry and patent law, focusing on U.S. and U.K. law, and multilateral agreements, and efforts by international organizations, such as the World...

Scholars widely acknowledge that university research is critical to innovation and entrepreneurship. Much of the literature on university research, however, evokes a linear model from “science to products” and focuses, therefore, upon a limited set of indicators such as patents and licenses....

US Supreme Court decisions in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories and Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Inc. caused US and European law on what is patentable subject matter to diverge significantly. Both cases related to molecular tests and changed decades...

This paper estimates the causal effect of being a first mover in the patent space by charting invention in a vector space model of technological relatedness and timing. Relative to close second movers, we find that first movers are more likely to prosecute a patent application to issuance and to...

The intersection of the patent and antitrust laws presents a formidable paradox. The patent laws increase invention and innovation by offering inventors a right to exclude. The antitrust laws foster competition, sometimes through the condemnation of such exclusion. Courts and commentators have...