Search

Patents are essential for transferring scientific discoveries tomeaningful products that benefit societies. While the academic community focuses on the number of citations to rank scholarly works according to their "scientific merit," the number of citations is unrelated to the relevance for patentable innovation. To explore associations between patents and scholarly works in publicly available patent data, we propose to utilize statistical methods that are commonly used in biology to determine gene-disease associations. We illustrate their usage on patents related to biotechnological trends of high relevance for food safety and ecology, namely the CRISPR-based gene editing technology (>60,000 patents) and cyanobacterial biotechnology (>33,000 patents). Innovation trends are found through their unexpected large changes of patent numbers in a time-series analysis. From the total set of scholarly works referenced by all investigated patents (~254,000 publications), we identified ~1,000 scholarly works that are statistical significantly over-represented in the references of patents from changing innovation trends that concern immunology, agricultural plant genomics, and biotechnological engineering methods. The detected associations are consistent with the technical requirements of the respective innovations. In summary, the presented data-driven analysis workflow can identify scholarly works that were required for changes in innovation trends, and, therefore, is of interest for researches that would like to evaluate the relevance of publications beyond the number of citations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In design patent law, we have created a monster—a chimera, a hybrid that sometimes looks and acts like a patent regime and then, unexpectedly, doesn’t. Courts in design patent cases sometimes apply the rules as they would in utility patent cases, sometimes modify those rules for the design context, and sometimes ignore the utility patent rules altogether. The consequences of that incomplete adoption of utility patent rules are grossly underappreciated. Among other things, it has wreaked havoc on the law of novelty and nonobviouness—doctrines that are supposed to ensure that we grant design patent protection only to new and meaningfully different designs. And it has too often resulted in rules that ignore how designers actually work. In this Article, we suggest that the problem stems from trying to fit design into a framework that was intended for the very different context of inventions. There are good reasons not to use the utility patent infringement rules for design, even if we are skeptical of the particular design patent infringement rule the Federal Circuit has settled on. And there are good reasons not to allow a design patent to have a different scope when it comes to infringement than for validity; doing so allows patent owners (and infringers) to game the system in litigation. The Federal Circuit has recognized some—but not all—of these necessary differences. But if there are good reasons to depart from utility patent rules in some cases, why insist on symmetry with utility patent in other respects? We think design patent law’s strange hybridity is largely a historical accident. In 1842, when design patents were first created, the utility patent system looked fundamentally different than it does today—and a lot more like an ideal design patent system would. Most significant, it used central rather than peripheral claiming. But as utility patent law changed, design patent law tagged along to its detriment. Courts (and ultimately Congress) should recognize the fundamental divergence between utility and design patents. Perhaps we should get rid of design patents altogether and adopt a sui generis regime for design, as virtually every other country has done. But if we are stuck with design patents, courts should apply design patent law with sensitivity to the differences between design and invention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While patent litigation is an important appropriability mechanism for protecting firms' proprietary knowledge, through the litigation process, valuable knowledge may unintentionally spill over from firms defending their patents to those they accuse of patent infringement. We examine whether such spillover subsequently enhances the innovation of accused firms by analyzing over 3,000 patent litigation cases from 1998 through 2015 in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. We find that firms accused of infringement have higher levels of innovation following litigation relative to other similar firms. Furthermore, litigation of patents that build on recent and heterogeneous knowledge and are characterized by greater scope more strongly enhance the accused firms' subsequent innovation. These findings support the argument that patent litigation can facilitate knowledge spillovers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article delves into the crucial role of patent marking in providing notice to the public and facilitating proper enforcement of patent rights. It discusses how the marking requirement, outlined in 35 U.S.C. § 287(a), ensures that patent owners can claim damages for infringement only after providing notice that a product is patented. It argues for a shift in the application of the marking requirement from a claim-by-claim basis to a patent-by-patent basis to address this loophole.

Conflicts and contradictions within the legal system may affect the effectiveness of law enforcement, but scholars have not conducted sufficient empirical research on the mechanism. Based on three periods of mixed cross-sectional data in 2015 and 2019 when the reform of patent transaction system in colleges and universities, which represents a quasi-natural experiment, has been carried out, this study adopted a difference-in-difference (DID) model to empirically analyze the efficiency of patent transactions. It was found that if the lower level system was not removed or revised in time when the higher level law had been revised, it would have a blocking effect on the implementation of the higher level law and thus make patent transaction less efficient. Furthermore, when the lower level system was revised accordingly, it would have a transmission effect on the implementation of the higher level law, which could promote its implementation. This basic conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests and can provide useful lessons for the systemic revision and organizing of laws, as well as the reform of the economic and social systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides information on the process of challenging a patent through a scope confirmation trial in Korea. It explains that materials published between the filing of the patent application and the infringement can be considered when determining the convenience of composition change. The scope confirmation trial is an expedited civil action aimed at quickly confirming whether the invention subject to confirmation falls within the objective scope of the patent right. The article also discusses the concept of equivalent infringement and the purpose of a scope confirmation trial. It concludes that the lower court made a reasonable judgment in a specific case and dismisses the appeal. [Extracted from the article]

The advancement of science and technology has spurned an expansion in patent entitlements, particularly evident in the extension of the object, content, and term of these rights. Currently, the world's criminal legislation is in the trend of criminalization, the expansion of patent rights further promotes the criminalization of patent protection and is embodied in the change process of the patent legal system. To comply with the trend of criminalization of patent protection, it is necessary to establish the offense of patent infringement. This is not only an effective way for criminal law to play its role as the ultimate safeguard, but also an important system for encouraging market competition and promoting economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In civil-law countries, employers must pay a value-based 'reasonable remuneration' to employee inventors. When dissatisfied with the amount of compensation, employee inventors can ask for a review by an independent board or directly in court and claim additional remuneration. The study explores the existence of ex-ante indicators that would help distinguish inventors entitled to higher/lower additional compensation. We build on the patent quality framework and test the explanatory power of the ex-ante patent value indicator, the patent family size, on the additional rewards awarded to employee inventors. A novel dataset of court cases heard between 1981 and 2017 in three civil-law countries (Germany, France, and Japan) is used. Our findings indicate a consistently positive effect of both simple and GDP-weighted patent family indicators on the additional remuneration granted. The main finding is as follows: if the court grants positive additional compensation, we observe an average 68% increase in compensation when the number of countries covered by the patent doubles; alternatively, if the total GDP of the countries covered by the patent doubles, the compensation increases by app. 59%. These findings, along with others from the study, can be beneficial for R&D managers, intellectual property managers, and other executives, as well as innovative employees, in estimating the remuneration amount for employee inventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing number of patent applications over the years, instances of patent infringement cases have become more frequent. However, traditional manual patent infringement detection models are no longer suitable for large-scale infringement detection. Existing automated models mainly focus on detecting one-to-one patent infringements, but neglect the many-to-one scenarios. The many-to-one patent infringement detection model faces some major challenges. First, the diversity of patent domains, complexity of content and ambiguity of features make it difficult to extract and represent patent features. Second, patent infringement detection relies on the correlation between patents and the comparison of contextual information as the key factors, but modeling the process and drawing conclusions present challenges. To address these challenges, we propose a many-to-one patent graph (MPG) embedding base infringement detection model. Our model extracts the relationship between keywords and patents, as well as association relation between keywords from many-to-one patent texts (MPTs), to construct a MPG. We obtain patent infringement features through graph embedding of MPG. By using these embedding features as input, the many-to-one infringement detection (MOID) model outputs the conclusion on whether a patent is infringed or not. The comparative experimental results indicate that our model improves accuracy, precision and F-measure by 3.81%, 11.82% and 5.37%, respectively, when compared to the state-of-the-art method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of "knocking off" the work of others has been an integral practice of the United States ready-to-wear industry since the 1890s. In the 1930s, the Fashion Originators Guild of America (FOGA) created an internal system to protect its members' design work, but in 1941 this system was declared in restraint of trade, and the next best protection option laid in the US design patent system. This research examines the 4,523 dress patents issued in the United States between 1936 and 1942, focusing on the designers and/or manufacturers represented and the process and timing of patent applications. Analysis of select court cases of design patent infringement, including a case study of a patent for "The Perfect Dress" by leading FOGA member and ready-to-wear dress manufacturer Samuel Zahn, demonstrates the difficulty of protecting a patented dress design and the complicated nature of what constituted an original design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cambodia is expected to graduate from least developed country (LDC) status in the near future, at which time it will be required to make patents available for pharmaceutical products and processes to meet its obligations under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Given its impending transition from LDC status, there is a need to balance Cambodia's intellectual property (IP) policies and regulations with public health priorities to ensure access to affordable life‐saving medicines. This will be critical to achieving universal health coverage, one of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. This paper examines Cambodia's IP laws and regulations to identify provisions which could reduce access to affordable generic medicines when it starts to grant patents for pharmaceuticals. It systematically compares Cambodia's IP laws and regulations applicable to patents with those of Thailand and India—two developing countries which have had some successes in preserving access to medicines despite the introduction of pharmaceutical patents. It identifies lessons for Cambodia from the experiences of Thailand and India in implementing TRIPS and using TRIPS flexibilities such as compulsory licensing to ensure access to a sustainable supply of affordable generic medicines. India's experience of implementing TRIPS offers a practical and valuable lesson in applying TRIPS for the greatest public benefit. Thailand, although it has not utilised TRIPS flexibilities as extensively as India, also offers valuable lessons in adapting and interpreting IP law to ensure sustainable access to generic medicines, especially in relation to compulsory licencing. Key recommendations for reform for Cambodia include strengthening the use of preventive and remedial TRIPS flexibilities and removing criminal sanctions for patent infringements. Cambodia should reject any TRIPS‐plus provisions in its patent legislation, avoid membership of bilateral or plurilateral trade agreements that include TRIPS‐plus provisions and avoid signing patent treaties and agreements designed to facilitate the granting of patents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of International Business Studies is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Propiedad Inmaterial is the property of Universidad Externado de Colombia, Centro de Estudios de la Propriedad Intelectual and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

No intellectual property rights impact society more forcefully than patents on pharmaceuticals. But as a practical matter, only a handful of jurists resolve disputes involving them. Two neighboring federal districts, Delaware and New Jersey, adjudicate the vast majority of patent contests between brand-name drug companies and generic manufacturers. And in contrast to Eastern Texas, which has been persistently derided as a renegade jurisdiction, the authority of the mid-Atlantic courts has seldom been questioned. The complex workings of the Hatch-Waxman Act, the compromise legislation that governs pharmaceutical patent litigation, go a long way to explaining such distinct shareholder reactions to highly similar judicial behaviors. Yet the dominance of Delaware and New Jersey in pharmaceutical patent litigation may have come to an end. A recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Valeant v. Mylan, has narrowed the rules for venue in Hatch-Waxman cases. We are now poised to see multiple, parallel trials involving the same patented pharmaceutical proceeding in courts across the country. The new order of pharmaceutical patent litigation affords an opportunity to reconsider an intellectual property environment that aims to promote pharmaceutical innovation but also increase public access to medications. Venue determinations are puzzling in pharmaceutical patent cases due to a concept originating within the Hatch-Waxman Act, the tort of "artificial" infringement. Artificial infringement occurs when a manufacturer petitions the federal government to obtain permission to market a generic drug. But the federal government both issues patents, and awards regulatory approval to sell a drug, with effect across the entire nation. Congress gave no thought towards situating artificial infringement at a certain place, and judicial efforts to do so have amounted to a facile and strained exercise. Venue is not artificial infringement's only problem. Artificial infringement also creates disconnects with personal jurisdiction principles, incorporates obsolete remedial provisions, and fails to comply with the international commitments of the United States. Courts should instead recognize their authority to accept declaratory judgment actions to resolve pharmaceutical patent infringement cases, with legislative abolition of artificial infringement presenting another, preferred possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patent application is one of the important ways to protect innovation achievements that have great commercial value for enterprises; it is the initial step for enterprises to set the business development track, as well as a powerful means to protect their core competitiveness. The emergence of a large amount of patent data makes the effective detection of patent data difficult, and patent infringement cases occur frequently. Manual measurement in patent detection is slow, costly, and subjective, and can only play an auxiliary role in measuring the validity of patents. Protecting the inventive achievements of patent holders and realizing more accurate and effective patent detection were the issues explored by academics. There are five main methods to measure patent similarity: clustering-based method, vector space model (VSM)-based method, subject–action–object (SAO) structure-based method, deep learning-based method, and patent structure-based method. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a calculation method to fuse the similarity of patent text and image. Firstly, the SAO structure extraction technique is used for the patent text to obtain the effective content of the text, and the SAO structure is compared for similarity; secondly, the patent image information is extracted and compared; finally, the patent similarity is obtained by fusing the two aspects of information. The feasibility and effectiveness of the scheme are proven by studying a large number of patent similarity cases in the field of mechanical structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I consider the construction of patents as social practices. The goal is to observe patents in action, that is, to catch patents in the act of becoming patents. This method of "following the action" is well established in the sociology of science. Similar consideration of the artifices by which a new patent is staged reveals parallels to the known staging of technical papers, including the recruitment of rhetorical allies, semantic fortification against subsequent challenges, and trials of cognitive strength. In each situation, assertions become stabilized facts only if subsequent recipients are induced to accept them as such. However, the patent is formed in a process that largely sidesteps the mechanisms of peer review and material experimentation, substituting instead legal and procedural affordances to facilitate closure. Thus, following the action from which the stabilized patent is fabricated reveals the patent as a uniquely legal, rather than technical, social object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through comparative study, case and data analysis, this article summarizes the key points of the fourth amendment of Chinese Patent Law, and analyses the expected practical significance. Meanwhile, this article also discusses the shortcomings of the new patent law after the fourth amendment, and puts forward some suggestions for further improvement and refinement. The purpose of the fourth amendment of Chinese Patent Law is mainly to make the Chinese patent system more in line with the current technological and economic development in China as well as international cooperative innovation. The core points of the fourth amendment include: (1) strengthening patent enforcement by adopting punitive damages to intentional patent infringement, and increasing the patent protection duration extension for new pharmaceuticals, etc. (2) Promoting patent implementation by adding 'Open Licence' rules and improving employees' invention regulations; (3) Improving design patent protection by expending protection duration and adopting protection for partial designs. (4) Increasing the provisions about the grace period for patent filings of inventions related to public interests. The new Patent Law 2020 will gradually show its significant practical effects. At the same time, however, there are still some regulations that need to be further clarified and refined for ensuring better implementation of the new law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically investigates the impact of offensive patent insurance on corporate innovation based on China's patent insurance policy. We find that offensive patent insurance promotes corporate innovation. The result is robust to a battery of sensitivity tests and is more prominent for firms located in regions with more efficiency in handling patent infringement cases, for small enterprises, for firms located in regions with better implementation of the insurance policy, and for firms with less complex technologies. In addition, we observe that offensive patent insurance promotes corporate innovation by stimulating corporate Research and Development (R&D) investment. Furthermore, we find that offensive patent insurance promotes radical innovation and incremental innovation and has an insignificant negative effect on appearance innovation, suggesting that offensive patent insurance leads enterprises to invest more resources in the development of innovations with higher market value. Our study suggests that offensive patent insurance is an important tool to promote corporate innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Taiwan Law Review is the property of Angle Publishing Co., Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This Article draws on a newly constructed multilayered relational dataset of patent infringement cases to assess hypotheses about different types of patent asserters and what happens in appeals of those cases. We situate this Article within the ongoing debates around companies that acquire patents but do not themselves practice the claimed technologies, particularly patent assertion entities (PAEs). We find that for some aspects of appeals, such as whether there was an appeal in a patent infringement case, cases brought by PAEs look similar on appeal to cases brought by product companies. But we also observe some substantial differences among litigant types--in particular, whether cases filed by PAEs are appealed more often and who is filing the appeals in those cases. We also observe that, regardless of the patent asserter type, most appeals are filed by patent owners, not accused infringers. Furthermore, even accounting for this difference, accused infringers are more successful on appeal than patent asserters--again, regardless of the type of patent asserter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All inventors should be compensated for the value of their contributions. Inventors contribute both to the patent system and to the technology commercialization process by providing access to a qualifying disclosure describing a qualifying idea. Yet today, a schism divides the patent world and the commercial world over the value of these inventive contributions. Unlike the commercial world, the patent world pays inventors for the contributions of non-inventor technology commercialization roles. In particular, seminal reasonable royalty cases like Georgia-Pacific and TWM Manufacturing allow patentees to recover infringer profits and proxies thereof--in violation of congressional mandate and the Supreme Court's opinion in Aro Manufacturing. These cases perpetuate the schism and contribute to the patent system's most consequential policy issues. Courts can close the schism and address these policy issues by removing measurement errors in reasonable royalty calculations. Instead of "indirectly" measuring compensatory damages based on the value of the infringer's implementation, courts should set reasonable royalties based on "direct" measurements of the inventor's contribution. Unlike indirect measurements, direct measurements ensure compliance with Aro Manufacturing. By adopting direct measurement techniques, courts can help all inventors receive compensation for the value of their contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the extent to which private defensive litigation insurance deters patent assertion by non-practicing entities (NPEs). We study the effect that a patent-specific defensive insurance product, offered by a leading litigation insurer, had on the litigation behavior of insured patents' owners, all of which are NPEs. We first model the impact of defensive litigation insurance on the behavior of patent enforcers and accused infringers. We show that the availability of defensive litigation insurance can have an effect on how often patent enforcers will assert their patents. We confirm this result empirically showing that the insurance policy had a large, negative effect on the likelihood that a patent included in the policy was subsequently asserted relative to other patents held by the same NPEs and relative to patents held by other NPEs with portfolios that were entirely excluded from the insurance product. Our findings suggest that market-based mechanisms can deter so-called "patent trolling." (JEL: G22, K41, O34) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pharmaceutical companies have long sought to maintain exclusivity over market drugs in a myriad of ways including creating patent thickets and evergreening. This article describes a two-step strategy by which pharmaceutical companies attempt to keep market exclusivity and delay generic entry. This new strategy can work in tandem with ANDA litigation and FDA labeling requirements to reclaim exclusive rights that should have expired or been unavailable under patent law. The "first wave" of litigation involves a typical ANDA litigation, where brand manufacturers sue for patent infringement to prevent generics from entering the market. The "second wave" of litigation involves suing the generic for induced infringement based on the "skinny label" on the generic drug. Notably, this second wave of litigation can act regardless of if the brand firm wins or loses the first wave of litigation. In this article we use Amarin v. Hikma as a case study of this strategy. We show that after the generic firm Hikma won the ANDA litigation invalidating a set of patents, they were subjected to a second wave of litigation based on a new set of patents. In this article we examine this new strategy and take a deep dive into the patent portfolios to determine how Amarin was able to create a large method of use-based patent thicket to set up this second wave of litigation. Although Hikma was able to win both the first and second waves of litigation, these court cases raise transaction costs and may deter or delay generic entry. These delays can amount to billions of added dollars to drug costs. This second wave strategy is especially important after the landmark GlaxoSmithKline v. Teva case, which could breathe new life into this type of litigation strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Galatasaray Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of GALATASARAY UNIVERSITESI HUKUK FAKULTESI and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Compiled and written by SCP Herald Herald Avocats is a French law firm involved in intellectual property law, pharmaceutical law and European Union law that provides services to healthcare, biotech and pharmaceutical companies. In the MA application at issue, UAB VVB designated, inter alia, TOBI as the reference medicinal product and therefore relied in part on data relating to that medicinal product, on the EAGER study comparing TOBI and Tobi Podhaler and on ex post analyses comparing the safety profiles of those medicinal products by subgroups (children, adolescents and adults), namely the 2014 Geller study. Tobramycin VVB may therefore present a new alternative solution to Tobi Podhaler, in particular in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, where TOBI, which could have been used for patients who are intolerant to Tobi Podhaler, is not authorised, but also to TOBI, which, in any event, as the applicant acknowledges, no longer enjoys any regulatory protection. In that application, Nebcin, a solution for injection for the purpose of data exclusivity, and TOBI, a tobramycin solution for inhalation by nebulizer (300 mg/5 ml), were designated as reference medicinal products for the purposes of the summary of product characteristics and clinical comparison. [Extracted from the article]

Introduction: Generic drug approval before patent expiration involves patent infringement petitions due to robust Life Cycle Management (LCM) strategies followed by Branded companies. They will extend the patent period of a product after expiration through Exclusivity rights, which act as a barrier for generic companies to launch the product immediately after patent expiration. This study focused on United States (US) generic market. Materials and Methods: The research was conducted on three major aspects where generic companies are facing major issues they are, Patent and Exclusivities, Paragraph IV certifications and Emerging Therapeutic areas. We performed a case study by statistical analysis on 2633 US-approved generic drugs on 12 pharma companies in India from 2009 to 2020. Results: In patent litigations, we found that Indian companies have the highest number of patent litigations related to secondary patents and new clinical indication exclusivity. In Paragraph IV certifications the Indian companies share was raised to 18%. A parallel study conducted on changes in therapeutic areas of these generic drugs from the past decade revealed that the production of cancer drugs was increased compared to cardiovascular and central nervous system drugs. Conclusion: This study will help in overcoming the above issues, where we explored the knowledge gaps between generic companies and branded companies that are needed to be addressed for successful marketing of generic drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers whether the U.S. might benefit from a strict pleading standard for direct infringement by comparing its pleading standard to that of the United Kingdom. It mentions discrepancy in the prevalence of patent trolls between the two countries might indicate that a stricter pleading standard like that in the United Kingdom might help the U.S. in its fight against patent trolls.