George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School

Hudson Institute Panel Focuses on Patent Litigation in China

The following post comes from Wade Cribbs, a 2L at Scalia Law and a Research Assistant at CPIP.

a gavel lying on a desk in front of booksBy Wade Cribbs

Questions about how Chinese patent protection operates in the international patent landscape are relevant to both companies doing business in China and policymakers in the United States. Read more

“No Combination Drug Patents Act” Stalls, but Threats to Innovation Remain

superimposed images from a chemistry labBy Kevin Madigan & Sean O’Connor

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee was to mark up a bill limiting patent eligibility for combination drug patents—new forms, uses, and administrations of FDA approved medicines. While the impetus was to curb so-called “evergreening” of drug patents, the effect would have been to stifle life-saving therapeutic innovations. Read more

Lobbyists Continue to Invoke Discredited Junk Science to Push Patent Legislation

dictionary entry for the word "innovate"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

Federal Circuit Brings Some Clarity and Sanity Back to Patent Eligibility Doctrine

By Adam Mossoff and Kevin Madigan

closeup of a circuit boardFollowing the Supreme Court’s four decisions on patent eligibility for inventions under § 101 of the Patent Act, there has been much disruption and uncertainty in the patent system. The patent bar and most stakeholders in the innovation industries have found the Supreme Court’s decisions in Alice Corp. Read more

No Consensus That Broad Patent ‘Reform’ is Necessary or Helpful

Here’s a brief excerpt of an op-ed by Adam Mossoff & Devlin Hartline that was published in The Hill:

Two recent op-eds published in The Hill argue that broad patent legislation—misleadingly labeled “reform”—is needed because the U.S. patent system is fundamentally broken. Read more

It’s Time to Say “No” to Junk Science in the Patent Policy Debates

Last March, forty economists and law professors submitted a letter to Congress expressing “deep concerns with the many flawed, unreliable, or incomplete studies about the American patent system that have been provided to members of Congress.”  These concerns were confirmed again last week when Unified Patents released a report on patent litigation with the same kind of “highly exaggerated claims regarding patent trolls” that the professors were concerned about. Read more

Tesla’s New Patent Policy: Long Live the Patent System!

Last Thursday, Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, issued an announcement on the company’s blog with a catchy title: “All Our Patent Are Belong to You.” Commentary in social media and on blogs, as well as in traditional newspapers, jumped to the conclusion that Tesla is abandoning its patents and making them “freely” available to the public for whomever wants to use them. Read more

The History of Patent Licensing and Secondary Markets in Patents: An Antidote to False Rhetoric

The patent licensing business model is a flashpoint of controversy in the patent policy debates. Individuals and firms that specialize in licensing patented innovation – and companies that purchase patents in order to license them – have come under attack by the President, members of Congress, companies, lobbying groups, and others. Read more

Adam Mossoff on Patented Innovation, Licensing & Litigation (Transcript)

Below is the text of the oral testimony provided by Professor Adam Mossoff to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance Subcommittee, in its November 7, 2013 hearing on “Demand Letters and Consumer Protection: Examining Deceptive Practices by Patent Assertion Entities.” Read more

GAO Report Confirms No “Patent Troll” Litigation Problem

As we previously reported, there are serious concerns with the studies asserting that a “patent litigation explosion” has been caused by patent licensing companies (so-called non-practicing entities (“NPEs”) or “patent trolls”). These seemingly alarming studies (see here and here) have drawn scholarly criticism for their use of proprietary, secret data collected from companies like RPX and Patent Freedom – companies whose business models are predicated on defending against patent licensing companies. Read more