Venture capital investment in the United States has declined steadily for years, as investors abandon an uncertain domestic climate for more reliable opportunities in foreign countries. In a report on the current state of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, the National Venture Capital Association emphasizes the extreme decline in the US share of global venture capital in the last twenty years, highlighting a drop from 83% of global share in 1996 to just 54% in 2015. Read more
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The Lawless Body – “Prior Judicial Opinions Did Not Bind the PTAB”
No just and coherent legal system would permit an administrative body to invalidate a property right that a court had previously upheld. Unfortunately, exactly that result was just endorsed by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Novartis AG v Noven Pharm., Read more
Lobbyists Continue to Invoke Discredited Junk Science to Push Patent Legislation
It seems no matter how many times the mole gets whacked, it keeps popping back up. The latest incarnation of this problem is a recent op-ed by Katie Johnson of the National Association of Realtors, which relies on a long since discredited study about the state of patent litigation in the United States. Read more
CPIP’s Sandra Aistars & Scalia Law Alumnae Urge Federal Circuit to Protect Creators and Rein In Fair Use in Oracle v. Google
On February 17, 2017, CPIP Senior Scholar Sandra Aistars filed an amicus brief in Oracle v. Google, a copyright case currently before the Federal Circuit. Prof. Aistars worked in conjunction with Scalia Law alumnae Antigone Peyton and Jennifer Aktins of Cloudigy Law and third-year law student Rebecca Cusey to file the brief on behalf of 13 intellectual property scholars, including CPIP’s Matthew Barblan, Devlin Hartline, Sean O’Connor, Eric Priest, and Mark Schultz. Read more
44 Law, Economics, and Business Professors Urge Supreme Court to take Presumptive Approach to Patent Exhaustion
44 law, economics, and business professors filed an amicus brief yesterday in support of Lexmark International in its Supreme Court case against Impression Products. The professors argue that although patent exhaustion provides the baseline rule for sales of a patented product by a patent owner, parties should be free to contract around the baseline rule in their business dealings. Read more
IPO Publishes Analysis of Recently Released Legislative Proposal
Last week, the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) released a proposed revision to the section of the Patent Act that defines the subject matter eligible for patenting. I discussed the importance of the proposal, noting that there have been several calls for legislative solutions to overly restrictive understanding of what inventions are eligible for patents. Read more
IPO Proposes Legislative Solution to the Morass of Patent Eligibility
On January 31, the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) released a proposed revision to the section of the Patent Act that defines the subject matter eligible for patenting.
IPO’s proposed text for an amended 35 U.S.C. § 101 can be downloaded here. Read more
CPIP, USPTO, & Lemelson Center Host “Great Inventors” Panel Discussion at American History Museum
On February 16, 2017, CPIP hosted a panel discussion, America as a Place of Innovation: Great Inventors and the Patent System, at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. The event was co-hosted by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian Institution and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Read more
Librarians’ Contradictory Letter Reveals an Alarming Ignorance of the Copyright System
On December 14th, a group of librarians sent a letter to Congress explaining why they believe the Copyright Office should remain under the control of the Library of Congress. Written by University of Virginia Library’s Brandon Butler, the letter is a self-contradicting and uninformed response to recent recommendations on reform of the Copyright Office offered by leading members of the House Judiciary Committee. Read more
Members of Congress Express Concerns About Abuses of PTO’s Inter Partes Review System
Two years ago, CPIP published an issue paper warning about the tremendous potential for abuse inherent in the America Invents Act’s newly-created administrative review programs. It now appears that several members of Congress are concerned as well. On December 5, 2016, a bipartisan group of New York representatives sent a letter to Michelle Lee, Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), raising their concerns about abuse of the inter partes review (IPR) system by financial speculators. Read more