Designing around patents is prevalent but not often appreciated as a means by which patents promote economic development through competition.  We provide a novel detailed empirical study of the extent and timing of designing around ...

Standard Development Organizations (SDOs) have one thing in common: they uniformly refrain from formally defining the meaning of “Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory” (FRAND) licensing terms required for patents essential to implement technical standards, called standard-essential ...

The author discusses patent legislation proposed in the 113th Congress that, if enacted, would mandate a stay of some cases, stripping district court judges of their independence and discretion in handling patent infringement cases. The ...

This two-part article discusses the Patent and Trademark Office’s recent proposed rulemaking setting new patent user fees. In Part I the author argues that the PTO can raise fees in accordance with its aggregate costs ...

This paper draws attention to fundamental deficiencies in studies that have been relied upon as authoritative sources on patent grant rate comparisons among national patent offices. The two prominent studies analyzed here had employed erroneous ...

This article examines a Complaint against Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman, alleging that a “disability” caused her productivity loss and delays in authoring her opinions, thereby rendering her performance unacceptable compared to other active judges ...

The Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution generally requires “Officers of the United States” to be nominated by the President “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.”  The Director of the U.S. ...

Unlike Administrative Law Judges presiding over adjudications in administrative tribunals operated by other Federal agencies, Administrative Patent Judges (APJs) at the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent Office receive bonus awards ...

In the widely publicized campaign to curb purported “patent troll” litigation abuses, there are many anecdotal stories on non-practicing entities’ (“NPE”) alleged abusive patent assertions. In view of the paucity of accurate accounts of the ...

When comparing patent litigation rates or “rarity” across decades, one must take into account the proportion to the actual scale of commercial activities that give rise to patent disputes. Such normalizing scales are preferably national ...

In a forthcoming article in the Michigan Law Review, Professor Mark Lemley advances a thesis that “the canonical story of the lone genius inventor is largely a myth” and describes a selection of pioneer inventions ...

This study was initiated in order to provide more factual insight into the recent debates on patent reforms in general and more particularly, the practice of patent continuations in the United States Patent and Trademark ...