Historically, financial institutions have relied on trade secrets and first-mover advantages, rather than patents, to protect their inventions. For the few financial patents that were issued, conventional wisdom was that they weren't terribly interesting or important. In our 2014 study on...

Fee shifting in patent litigation has been a hot topic in recent years. In Octane Fitness v. ICON and Highmark v. Allcare, the Supreme Court made it easier to shift fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285, which allows courts to award reasonable attorney's fees to prevailing parties in patent cases....

The banking industry and the patent system are longstanding American institutions whose histories date back to the founding of this country. Historically, however, the paths of these two institutions rarely crossed. Although financial firms have been increasing their innovative output for...

It has been more than 75 years since the Supreme Court decided International Shoe Co. v. Washington, yet questions surrounding the personal jurisdiction doctrine loom large. Over the past decade, the Roberts Court has issued a handful of personal jurisdiction opinions, including Ford Motor Co....

In recent years, the topic of gene patents has generated significant debate among medical researchers, biotechnology companies, academics, policymakers, and patent lawyers. The controversy implicates a wide range of legal and policy questions, including whether human genes should be patentable,...

In the age of digital music, illicit copying or burning of CDs is a rampant problem that undermines the rights of copyright holders, record labels, and artists alike. The recording industry has attempted to address this problem by manufacturing and releasing CDs with various types of digital...

The United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in Medtronic, Inc. v. Boston Scientific Corp. – the first patent case of the term – on November 5, 2013. The issue in Medtronic is whether the burden of proof in patent declaratory judgment actions should be on the patent owner...

In May 2018, the International IP Commercialization Council (IIPCC) hosted a conference titled "Meeting the Challenges to America's Economic Future: Charting the Course in U.S. Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy" that explored the current state of the U.S. patent system in the wake of...

Privilege rules, which determine whether information is discover-able in a particular litigation, often vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Consequently, the Erie doctrine and other choice-of-law principles play an important role in shaping privilege law. This essay, written for the Sixth...