Strangers in a Strange Land: Specialized Courts Resolving Patent Disputes

Lawrence M. Sung, University of Maryland School of Law

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Published in Business Law Today, March/April 2008, p. 27-29.

Abstract

As the number of cases and disputes involving proprietary technology subject to intellectual property rights has increased in recent years, a decades-old view that such matters should be adjudicated exclusively by specialized courts and judges has experienced a renaissance. This call for specialized, or problem-solving, courts at both the federal and state levels is not unique to the intellectual property field, however. Indeed, there has been a significant movement over the past several years to establish specialized drug courts, community courts, mental health courts, and domestic violence courts. One common element among these efforts is the idea that specialized courts might better address the contextual nature of a dispute because of the judges’ experience and familiarity with the underlying issues.