I am an avid reader of books about scientists, inventors and innovators. I’ve been particularly happy about the evolution of the narrative nonfiction genre that has occurred since the publication in 1995 of Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, Dava Sobel’s award-winning book on John Harrison’s invention of the first truly mechanical clock. Read more
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A Critique of a Recent Article Which Found That Sequence Patents Cover the Entire Human Genome
By Professor Christopher Holman
[The following is a blog posting by Christopher Holman, a patent law scholar at UMKC School of Law, that he originally posted on April 5, 2013 at his blog, Holman’s Biotech IP Blog, where Professor Holman regularly blogs on important issues in biotech and IP law. Read more
How Copyright Drives Innovation in Scholarly Publishing
[Cross posted at Truth on the Market]
Today’s public policy debates frame copyright policy solely in terms of a “trade off” between the benefits of incentivizing new works and the social deadweight losses imposed by the access restrictions imposed by these (temporary) “monopolies.” Read more
Summary of Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons by Professor Chris Newman
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, U.S. Supreme Court, decided March 19, 2013
Chris Newman
Assistant Professor of Law
George Mason University School of Law
This is best described as a decision in which the Court felt compelled to choose between two readings of the Copyright Act, either of which led to unpalatable results. Read more
The SHIELD Act: When Bad Economic Studies Make Bad Laws
[Cross-Posted at Truth on the Market on March 15, 2013]
Earlier this month, Representatives Peter DeFazio and Jason Chaffetz picked up the gauntlet from President Obama’s comments on February 14 at a Google-sponsored Internet Q&A on Google+ that “our efforts at patent reform only went about halfway to where we need to go” and that he would like “to see if we can build some additional consensus on smarter patent laws.” Read more
Scratching my Head Over the SHIELD Act
By Michael Risch
[The following is a blog posting by Michael Risch, a patent law scholar at Villanova Law School, that he originally posted on March 10, 2013 at the law professor group blog, Madisonian.net, where Professor Risch regularly blogs. Read more
Patented Innovation and Patent Wars: Some Historical Perspective
[This was originally posted at IBM’s A Smarter Planet Blog on January 11, 2013.]
The America Invents Act (AIA) was signed into law in September 2011, and it is rightly recognized as “the most significant reform of the U.S. patent system since 1836.” Read more
Where Are the Creators? Consider Creators in Copyright Reform
Note: This post was cross-posted at the CATO Unbound on 2/1/2013. The January 2013 issue of CATO Unbound feature a debate on copyright reform, Opportunities for Copyright Reform This post responds to the discussion in that issue, but it also stands alone as a critique of copyright reform proposals that favor to consider the importance of creators. Read more
Today’s Software Patents Look a Lot Like Early Pharma Patents
[Cross Posted to Truth on the Market]
The recent New York Times article on the high-tech industry argues that software patents and the current “smart phone war” are a disaster for innovation, and it backs this with quotes and cites from a horde of academics and judges, like Judge Richard Posner, that software patents are causing “chaos.” Read more
The “Patent Litigation Explosion” Canard
[Cross Posted to Truth on the Market on October 18, 2012]
We often hear today that there’s an unprecedented “patent litigation explosion” that’s killing innovation. Last week, the New York Times plied this claim without abandon in its hit piece on high-tech patents. Read more