iBet uBet web content aggregator. Adding the entire web to your favor.
iBet uBet web content aggregator. Adding the entire web to your favor.



Link to original content: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_rights
Patent - Wikipedia
Wikipedia

Patent

(Redirected from Patent rights)
For other uses, see Patent (disambiguation).

A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention.[1] In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce their rights.[2]

A patent issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

The procedure for granting patents, requirements placed on the patentee, and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. Typically, however, a patent application must include one or more claims that define the scope of protection that is being sought. A patent may include many claims, each of which defines a specific property right.

Under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) TRIPS Agreement, patents should be available in WTO member states for any invention, in all fields of technology, provided they are new, involve an inventive step, and are capable of industrial application.[3] Nevertheless, there are variations on what is patentable subject matter from country to country, also among WTO member states. TRIPS also provides that the term of protection available should be a minimum of twenty years.[4] Some countries have other patent-like forms of intellectual property, such as utility models, which have a shorter monopoly period.

Definition

edit

The word patent originates from the Latin patere, which means "to lay open" (i.e., to make available for public inspection). It is a shortened version of the term letters patent, which was an open document or instrument issued by a monarch or government granting exclusive rights to a person, predating the modern patent system. Similar grants included land patents, which were land grants by early state governments in the US, and printing patents, a precursor of modern copyright.

In modern usage, the term patent usually refers to the right granted to anyone who invents something new, useful and non-obvious. A patent is often referred to as a form of intellectual property right,[5][6] an expression which is also used to refer to trademarks and copyrights,[6] and which has proponents and detractors (see also Intellectual property § The term "intellectual property").

Some other types of intellectual property rights are also called patents in some jurisdictions: industrial design rights are called design patents in the US,[7] plant breeders' rights are sometimes called plant patents,[8] and utility models and Gebrauchsmuster are sometimes called petty patents or innovation patents. The additional qualification utility patent is sometimes used (primarily in the US) to distinguish the primary meaning from these other types of patents.

Particular types of patents for inventions include biological patents, business method patents, chemical patents and software patents.

History

edit
Main article: History of patent law
 
The Venetian Patent Statute, issued by the Senate of Venice in 1474, and one of the earliest statutory patent systems in the world.

Although there is evidence that some form of patent rights was recognized in Ancient Greece in the city of Sybaris,[9][10] the first statutory patent system is generally regarded to be the Venetian Patent Statute of 1474. However, recent historical research has suggested that the 1474 Statute was inspired by laws in the Kingdom of Jerusalem that granted monopolies to developers of novel silk-making techniques.[11] Patents were systematically granted in Venice as of 1474, where they issued a decree by which new and inventive devices had to be communicated to the Republic in order to obtain legal protection against potential infringers. The period of protection was 10 years.[12] As Venetians emigrated, they sought similar patent protection in their new homes. This led to the diffusion of patent systems to other countries.[13]

The English patent system evolved from its early medieval origins into the first modern patent system that recognised intellectual property in order to stimulate invention; this was the crucial legal foundation upon which the Industrial Revolution could emerge and flourish.[14] By the 16th century, the English Crown would habitually abuse the granting of letters patent for monopolies.[15] After public outcry, King James I of England (VI of Scotland) was forced to revoke all existing monopolies and declare that they were only to be used for "projects of new invention". This was incorporated into the Statute of Monopolies (1624) in which Parliament restricted the Crown's power explicitly so that the King could only issue letters patent to the inventors or introducers of original inventions for a fixed number of years. The Statute became the foundation for later developments in patent law in England and elsewhere.

 
James Puckle's 1718 early autocannon was one of the first inventions required to provide a specification for a patent.

Important developments in patent law emerged during the 18th century through a slow process of judicial interpretation of the law. During the reign of Queen Anne, patent applications were required to supply a complete specification of the principles of operation of the invention for public access.[16] Legal battles around the 1796 patent taken out by James Watt for his steam engine, established the principles that patents could be issued for improvements of an already existing machine and that ideas or principles without specific practical application could also legally be patented.[17]

The English legal system became the foundation for patent law in countries with a common law heritage, including the United States, New Zealand and Australia. In the Thirteen Colonies, inventors could obtain patents through petition to a given colony's legislature. In 1641, Samuel Winslow was granted the first patent in North America by the Massachusetts General Court for a new process for making salt.[18]

The modern French patent system was created during the Revolution in 1791.[19] Patents were granted without examination since inventor's right was considered as a natural one. Patent costs were very high (from 500 to 1,500 francs). Importation patents protected new devices coming from foreign countries. The patent law was revised in 1844 – patent cost was lowered and importation patents were abolished.[20]

The first Patent Act of the U.S. Congress was passed on April 10, 1790, titled "An Act to promote the progress of useful Arts".[21] The first patent under the Act was granted on July 31, 1790, to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for a method of producing potash (potassium carbonate).[22] A revised patent law was passed in 1793, and in 1836 a major revision was passed. The 1836 law instituted a significantly more rigorous application process, including the establishment of an examination system. Between 1790 and 1836 about ten thousand patents were granted. By the American Civil War about 80,000 patents had been granted.[23]

Gender gap in patents

edit
 
Share of women amongst listed inventors in PCT applications from 2009 till 2023. In 2023, 17.7% of inventors were women.[24]

In the US, married women were historically precluded from obtaining patents. While section 1 of the Patent Act of 1790 did refer to "she",[25] married women were unable to own property in their own name and were also prohibited from rights to their own income, including income from anything they invented.[26] This historical gender gap has lessened over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, however, disparity is still prevalent.[27] In the UK, for example, only 8% of inventors were female as of 2015.[28] This can partly be attributed to historical barriers for women to obtain patents,[26] as well as to the fact that women are underrepresented in traditionally "patent-intensive" sectors, particularly STEM sectors.[27] Marcowitz-Bitton et al. argue that the gender gap in patents is also a result of internal bias within the patent system.[27]

Innovation decline

edit

The number of patent applications filed each year has been growing for most countries although not smoothly, and jumps in activity are often observed due to changes in local laws. The high number of patent families for Spain in the 1800s is related to the superior preservation and cataloguing of the data by Spanish Patent and Trademark Office compared to other countries (see 1836 U.S. Patent Office fire). The US was the World's leader in terms of patent families filed between 1900 and 1966, when Japan took over. Since 2007 PR China leads.

 
Number of patent families published by different authorities vs. earliest priority date

However, in most technologically advanced countries (see, for example, France,[29] Italy, Japan,[30] Spain, Sweden, the UK[31][32] in the figure on the right, as well as in Poland[33]), the total (i.e. regardless of the priority/inventors' country) number of patent families filed there have been declining in absolute numbers since c. 1970s–1980s. The decline is even more pronounced when the number of patent applications is normalized by the country's population each year, or when the country of origin rather than country of filing is used.[34] For the US, the population-normalized peak in patenting occurred in 1915,[35] and the number of subsequent patents induced per patent has been mostly declining since 1926.[36] A study of 4,512 patents obtained by Stanford University between 1970 and 2020 showed that the university's patenting activity plateaued in the 2010s.[37] Incidentally, only 20% of Stanford patents in that dataset produced a positive net income for the university, while the rest was a net loss.

Similar declines have been noted not only for the number of patents, but also for other measures of innovation output.[38][35]

Several hypotheses have been proposed as explanations for the observed decline:

  1. increasing cost of doing research, as "lower-hanging fruits have been picked up";[39][40][41]
  2. decrease in productivity per researcher;[42][43][41] This occurred because factor (1) (higher hanging fruits) overwhelms increased efficiency in computation, automation, big data analysis and communication.
  3. human civilization is reaching the limits of the human brain rather than technological limits. "For the first time in history people are bombarded with far more information than they can process."[44]
  4. It has also been suggested[45] that the rate of innovation is proportional to the rate of population growth (rather than to the total population), and that the observed decline in research productivity is related to the resource-limited Malthusian growth model.
  5. increasing fragmentation of patent encumbrance[46][47] and increasing number and cost of patent litigations;[48]
  6. decreasing value of patents in post-industrial economies, as businesses prefer less risky and more profitable investments in software rather than in hardware,[49][47] which can be protected more effectively and at a lower cost by using copyrights, trade secrets, first mover advantage, download limitations (see digital economy).[50] A related decline of manufacturing share in the GDP of post-industrial countries has been reported in some studies.[51]
  7. a slow-down in patent applications in the US has been attributed to court decisions in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc.(2012), Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. (2013) and Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International (2014) limiting the eligibility of business method and biological patents.[52] Similar restrictions on software patents have been enacted in other countries.[53]
  8. the number of patent applications from PR China is expected to go down after 2025, when government subsidies for patent filing are to expire.[54]
  9. patents that are registered but not commercialized, as is the case in around 50% of them, function as a barrier to the registration of similar ideas, effectively creating a growing zone of non-patentability.[55]

Law

edit

Effects

edit

A patent does not give a right to make or use or sell an invention.[1] Rather, a patent provides, from a legal standpoint, the right to exclude others[1] from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention for the term of the patent, which is usually 20 years from the filing date[4] subject to the payment of maintenance fees. From an economic and practical standpoint however, a patent is better and perhaps more precisely regarded as conferring upon its proprietor "a right to try to exclude by asserting the patent in court", for many granted patents turn out to be invalid once their proprietors attempt to assert them in court.[56] A patent is a limited property right the government gives inventors in exchange for their agreement to share details of their inventions with the public. Like any other property right, it may be sold, licensed, mortgaged, assigned or transferred, given away, or simply abandoned.

A patent, being an exclusionary right, does not necessarily give the patent owner the right to exploit the invention subject to the patent. For example, many inventions are improvements of prior inventions that may still be covered by someone else's patent.[1] If an inventor obtains a patent on improvements to an existing invention which is still under patent, they can only legally use the improved invention if the patent holder of the original invention gives permission, which they may refuse.

Some countries have "working provisions" that require the invention be exploited in the jurisdiction it covers. Consequences of not working an invention vary from one country to another, ranging from revocation of the patent rights to the awarding of a compulsory license awarded by the courts to a party wishing to exploit a patented invention. The patentee has the opportunity to challenge the revocation or license, but is usually required to provide evidence that the reasonable requirements of the public have been met by the working of invention.

Challenges

edit

In most jurisdictions, there are ways for third parties to challenge the validity of an allowed or issued patent at the national patent office; these are called opposition proceedings. It is also possible to challenge the validity of a patent in court. In either case, the challenging party tries to prove that the patent should never have been granted. There are several grounds for challenges: the claimed subject matter is not patentable subject matter at all; the claimed subject matter was actually not new, or was obvious to the person skilled in the art, at the time the application was filed; or that some kind of fraud was committed during prosecution with regard to listing of inventors, representations about when discoveries were made, etc. Patents can be found to be invalid in whole or in part for any of these reasons.[57][58]

Infringement

edit
Main article: Patent infringement

Patent infringement occurs when a third party, without authorization from the patentee, makes, uses, or sells a patented invention. Patents, however, are enforced on a national basis. The making of an item in China, for example, that would infringe a US patent, would not constitute infringement under US patent law unless the item were imported into the US.[59]

Infringement includes literal infringement of a patent, meaning they are performing a prohibited act that is protected against by the patent. There is also the Doctrine of Equivalents. This doctrine protects from someone creating a product that is basically, by all rights, the same product that is protected with just a few modifications.[60] In some countries, like the United States, there is liability for another two forms of infringement. One is contributory infringement, which is participating in another's infringement. This could be a company helping another company to create a patented product or selling the patented product which is created by another company.[61] There is also inducement to infringement, which is when a party induces or assists another party in violating a patent. An example of this would be a company paying another party to create a patented product in order to reduce their competitor's market share.[62] This is important when it comes to gray market goods, which is when a patent owner sells a product in country A, wherein they have the product patented, then another party buys and sells it, without the owner's permission, in country B, wherein the owner also has a patent for the product. With either national or regional exhaustion being the law the in country B, the owner may still be able to enforce their patent rights; however, if country B has a policy of international exhaustion, then the patent owner will have no legal grounds for enforcing the patent in country B as it was already sold in a different country.[63]

Enforcement

edit

Patents can generally only be enforced through civil lawsuits (for example, for a US patent, by an action for patent infringement in a United States federal district court), although some countries (such as France and Austria) have criminal penalties for wanton infringement.[64] Typically, the patent owner seeks monetary compensation (damages) for past infringement, and seeks an injunction that prohibits the defendant from engaging in future acts of infringement, or seeks either damages or injunction. To prove infringement, the patent owner must establish that the accused infringer practises all the requirements of at least one of the claims of the patent. (In many jurisdictions the scope of the patent may not be limited to what is literally stated in the claims, for example due to the doctrine of equivalents.)

An accused infringer has the right to challenge the validity of the patent allegedly being infringed in a counterclaim. A patent can be found invalid on grounds described in the relevant patent laws, which vary between countries. Often, the grounds are a subset of requirements for patentability in the relevant country. Although an infringer is generally free to rely on any available ground of invalidity (such as a prior publication, for example), some countries have sanctions to prevent the same validity questions being relitigated. An example is the UK Certificate of contested validity.

Patent licensing agreements are contracts in which the patent owner (the licensor) agrees to grant the licensee the right to make, use, sell, or import the claimed invention, usually in return for a royalty or other compensation.[65][66] It is common for companies engaged in complex technical fields to enter into multiple license agreements associated with the production of a single product. Moreover, it is equally common for competitors in such fields to license patents to each other under cross-licensing agreements in order to share the benefits of using each other's patented inventions. Freedom Licenses like the Apache 2.0 License are a hybrid of copyright/trademark/patent license/contract due to the bundling nature of the three intellectual properties in one central license. This can make it difficult to enforce because patent licenses cannot be granted this way under copyright and would have to be considered a contract.[67]

Ownership

edit

In most countries, both natural persons and corporate entities may apply for a patent. In the United States, however, only the inventor(s) may apply for a patent, although it may be assigned to a corporate entity subsequently[68] and inventors may be required to assign inventions to their employers under an employment contract. In most European countries, ownership of an invention may pass from the inventor to their employer by rule of law if the invention was made in the course of the inventor's normal or specifically assigned employment duties, where an invention might reasonably be expected to result from carrying out those duties, or if the inventor had a special obligation to further the interests of the employer's company.[69] Applications by artificial intelligence systems, such as DABUS, have been rejected in the US, the UK, and at the European Patent Office on the grounds they are not natural persons.[70]

 
The plate of the Martin ejector seat of a military aircraft, stating that the product is covered by multiple patents in the UK, South Africa, Canada and pending in "other" jurisdictions. Dübendorf Museum of Military Aviation.

The inventors, their successors or their assignees become the proprietors of the patent when and if it is granted. If a patent is granted to more than one proprietor, the laws of the country in question and any agreement between the proprietors may affect the extent to which each proprietor can exploit the patent. For example, in some countries, each proprietor may freely license or assign their rights in the patent to another person while the law in other countries prohibits such actions without the permission of the other proprietor(s).

The ability to assign ownership rights increases the liquidity of a patent as property. Inventors can obtain patents and then sell them to third parties.[71] The third parties then own the patents and have the same rights to prevent others from exploiting the claimed inventions, as if they had originally made the inventions themselves.

Governing laws

edit
See also: Outline of patents

The grant and enforcement of patents are governed by national laws, and also by international treaties, where those treaties have been given effect in national laws. Patents are granted by national or regional patent offices,[72] i.e. national or regional administrative authorities. A given patent is therefore only useful for protecting an invention in the country in which that patent is granted. In other words, patent law is territorial in nature. When a patent application is published, the invention disclosed in the application becomes prior art and enters the public domain (if not protected by other patents) in countries where a patent applicant does not seek protection, the application thus generally becoming prior art against anyone (including the applicant) who might seek patent protection for the invention in those countries.

Commonly, a nation or a group of nations forms a patent office with responsibility for operating that nation's patent system, within the relevant patent laws. The patent office generally has responsibility for the grant of patents, with infringement being the remit of national courts.

The authority for patent statutes in different countries varies. In the UK, substantive patent law is contained in the Patents Act 1977 as amended.[73] In the United States, the Constitution empowers Congress to make laws to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts ...". The laws Congress passed are codified in Title 35 of the United States Code and created the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

There is a trend towards global harmonization of patent laws, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) being particularly active in this area.[74][non-primary source needed] The TRIPS Agreement has been largely successful in providing a forum for nations to agree on an aligned set of patent laws. Conformity with the TRIPS agreement is a requirement of admission to the WTO and so compliance is seen by many nations as important. This has also led to many developing nations, which may historically have developed different laws to aid their development, enforcing patents laws in line with global practice.

Internationally, there are international treaty procedures, such as the procedures under the European Patent Convention (EPC) [constituting the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg)], that centralize some portion of the filing and examination procedure. Similar arrangements exist among the member states of ARIPO and OAPI, the analogous treaties among African countries, and the nine CIS member states that have formed the Eurasian Patent Organization. A key international convention relating to patents is the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, initially signed in 1883. The Paris Convention sets out a range of basic rules relating to patents, and although the convention does not have direct legal effect in all national jurisdictions, the principles of the convention are incorporated into all notable current patent systems. The Paris Convention set a minimum patent protection of 20 years, but the most significant aspect of the convention is the provision of the right to claim priority: filing an application in any one member state of the Paris Convention preserves the right for one year to file in any other member state, and receive the benefit of the original filing date. Another key treaty is the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and covering more than 150 countries. The Patent Cooperation Treaty provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states along with giving owners a 30-month priority for applications as opposed to the standard 12 the Paris Convention granted. A patent application filed under the PCT is called an international application, or PCT application. The steps for PCT applications are as follows:

1. Filing the PCT patent application

2. Examination during the international phase

3. Examination during the national phase.[75]

Alongside these international agreements for patents there was the Patent Law Treaty (PLT). This treaty standardized the filing date requirements, standardized the application and forms, allows for electronic communication and filing, and avoids unintentional loss of rights, and simplifies patent office procedures.[76]

Sometimes, nations grant others, other than the patent owner, permissions to create a patented product based on different situations that align with public policy or public interest. These may include compulsory licenses, scientific research, and in transit in country.[77]

Anti-biopiracy dispositions

edit

After two decades of drafting,[78] the WIPO's Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore[79] moved to a Diplomatic Conference in May 2024[80] and adopted the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge (GRATK Treaty)[81] mandating patent disclosure requirements for patents based on genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge from being granted.[82] The Treaty contemplates revocation for patents incorrectly filed.[83]

The treaty, and in particular its planned extension,[80] is seen as complementing the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity and its system of Access and Benefit-Sharing.[84] Representatives of Indigenous peoples view the GRATK Treaty as a "first step towards guaranteeing just and transparent access to these resources."[85][86]

Application and prosecution

edit
Main articles: Patent application and Patent prosecution

Before filing for an application, which must be paid for whether a patent is granted or not, a person will want to ensure that their material is patentable. Patentable material must be synthetic, meaning that anything natural cannot be patented. For example, minerals, materials, genes, facts, organisms, and biological processes cannot be patented, but if someone were to apply an inventive, non-obvious, step to them to synthesize something new, the result could be patentable. That includes genetically engineered strains of bacteria, as was decided in Diamond v. Chakrabarty.[87] Patentability also depends on public policy and ethical standards.[88] Additionally, patentable materials must be novel, useful, and a non-obvious inventive step.[89]

 
Patent applications filed at the world's major patent offices from 1980 to 2021.

A patent is requested by filing a written application at the relevant patent office. The person or company filing the application is referred to as "the applicant". The applicant may be the inventor or its assignee. The application contains a description of how to make and use the invention that must provide sufficient detail for a person skilled in the art (i.e., the relevant area of technology) to make and use the invention. In some countries there are requirements for providing specific information such as the usefulness of the invention, the best mode of performing the invention known to the inventor, or the technical problem or problems solved by the invention. Drawings illustrating the invention may also be provided.

The application also includes one or more claims that define what a patent covers or the "scope of protection".

After filing, an application is often referred to as "patent pending". While this term does not confer legal protection, and a patent cannot be enforced until granted, it serves to provide warning to potential infringers that if the patent is issued, they may be liable for damages.[90][91][92]

Once filed, a patent application is "prosecuted". A patent examiner reviews the patent application to determine if it meets the patentability requirements of that country. If the application does not comply, objections are communicated to the applicant or their patent agent or attorney through an Office action, to which the applicant may respond. The number of Office actions and responses that may occur vary from country to country, but eventually a final rejection is sent by the patent office, or the patent application is granted, which after the payment of additional fees, leads to an issued, enforceable patent. In some jurisdictions, there are opportunities for third parties to bring an opposition proceeding between grant and issuance, or post-issuance.

Once granted the patent is subject in most countries to renewal fees to keep the patent in force. These fees are generally payable on a yearly basis. Some countries or regional patent offices (e.g. the European Patent Office) also require annual renewal fees to be paid for a patent application before it is granted. In the US, patent maintenance fees are due on 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 anniversaries of the patent issuance.[93] Only ca. 50% of issued US patents are maintained full term. Large corporations tend to pay maintenance fees through the full term, while small companies are more likely to abandon their patents earlier, even though the due fees are ca. 5 times lower for small businesses (microentities).[94]

Costs

edit

The costs of preparing and filing a patent application, prosecuting it until grant and maintaining the patent vary from one jurisdiction to another, and may also be dependent upon the type and complexity of the invention, and on the type of patent.

The European Patent Office estimated in 2005 that the average cost of obtaining a European patent (via a Euro-direct application, i.e. not based on a PCT application) and maintaining the patent for a 10-year term was around €32,000.[95] Since the London Agreement entered into force on May 1, 2008, this estimation is however no longer up-to-date, since fewer translations are required.

After a patent is issued, in most countries patent maintenance payments are required. In some countries (e.g. Russia) fees are due every year, and the amount due does not change much. In other countries (e.g. US) payments are due ca. every 4th year after the grant date, and the amount due increases every time. A 2023 study by Rochester Institute of Technology found the full term maintenance rate of issued US patents has been fairly constant (40-50%) since 1992. Full term patents have more issued claims and receive on average more citations than earlier expired patents.[96]

The European Patent Office charges annual fees for pending applications. Also, between 2012 and 2016 Ecuador increased its patent maintenance fees ten-fold, briefly becoming the most expensive country to maintain patents.[97]

In the United States, in 2000 the cost of obtaining a patent (patent prosecution) was estimated to be from $10,000 to $30,000 per patent.[98] When patent litigation is involved (which in year 1999 happened in about 1,600 cases compared to 153,000 patents issued in the same year[98]), costs increase significantly: although 95% of patent litigation cases are settled out of court,[99] those that reach the courts have legal costs on the order of a million dollars per case, not including associated business costs.[100]

Non-national treatment in the application procedure

edit

Non-national treatments in national patent offices had been prevalent among the Northern countries[citation needed] until they were prohibited after the negotiation of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. According to Articles 2 and 3 of this treaty, juristic and natural persons who are either national of or domiciled in a state party to the Convention shall, as regards the protection of industrial property, enjoy in all the other countries of the Union, the advantages that their respective laws grant to nationals.

In addition, the TRIPS Agreement explicitly prohibits any such discrimination. TRIPS Agreement Article 27.1 states that 'patents shall be available and patent rights enjoyable without discrimination as to the place of invention, the field of technology and whether products are imported or locally produced'.

Alternatives

edit

A defensive publication is the act of publishing a detailed description of a new invention without patenting it, so as to establish prior art and public identification as the creator/originator of an invention, although a defensive publication can also be anonymous. A defensive publication prevents others from later being able to patent the invention.

A trade secret is information that is intentionally kept confidential and that provides a competitive advantage to its possessor. Trade secrets are protected by non-disclosure agreement and labour law, each of which prevents information leaks such as breaches of confidentiality and industrial espionage. Compared to patents, the advantages of trade secrets are that the value of a trade secret continues until it is made public,[101] whereas a patent is only in force for a specified time, after which others may freely copy the invention; does not require payment of fees to governmental agencies or filing paperwork;[101] has an immediate effect;[101] and does not require any disclosure of information to the public.[101] The key disadvantage of a trade secret is its vulnerability to reverse engineering.[102]

Benefits

edit

Primary incentives embodied in the patent system include incentives to invent in the first place; to disclose the invention once made; to invest the sums necessary to experiment, produce and market the invention; and to design around and improve upon earlier patents.[103]

Patents provide incentives for economically efficient research and development (R&D).[104] A study conducted annually by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) shows that the 2,000 largest global companies invested more than 430 billion euros in 2008[105] in their R&D departments. If the investments can be considered as inputs of R&D, real products and patents are the outputs. Based on these groups, a project named Corporate Invention Board, had measured and analyzed the patent portfolios to produce an original picture[106] of their technological profiles. Supporters of patents argue that without patent protection, R&D spending would be significantly less or eliminated altogether, limiting the possibility of technological advances or breakthroughs. Corporations would be much more conservative about the R&D investments they made, as third parties would be free to exploit any developments.[citation needed]

The logical consequence of more efficient R&D is a more efficient national economy: An increase in patenting has proven to be linked with an increase of national income. A 2009 study on patent effects in various countries around the world finds, for instance, that a 10% increase in patenting in 1910 led on average to a 9 to 11% higher level of per capita GDP in 1960. The positive effects of patenting on national income were found to be particularly strong in the U.S., Switzerland and Sweden. However, patenting is not the only factor influencing GDP growth: among others, schooling also plays a big role.[107]

"The patent internalizes the externality by giving the [inventor] a property right over its invention."[108]

In accordance with the original definition of the term "patent", patents are intended to facilitate and encourage disclosure of innovations into the public domain for the common good. Thus patenting can be viewed as contributing to open hardware after an embargo period (usually of 20 years). If inventors did not have the legal protection of patents, in many cases, they might prefer or tend to keep their inventions secret (e.g. keep trade secrets).[109] Awarding patents generally makes the details of new technology publicly available, for exploitation by anyone after the patent expires, or for further improvement by other inventors. Furthermore, when a patent's term has expired, the public record ensures that the patentee's invention is not lost to humanity.[103][specify]

One effect of modern patent usage is that a small-time inventor, who can afford both the patenting process and the defense of the patent,[110] can use the exclusive right status to become a licensor. This allows the inventor to accumulate capital from licensing the invention and may allow innovation to occur because he or she may choose not to manage a manufacturing buildup for the invention. Thus the inventor's time and energy can be spent on pure innovation, allowing others to concentrate on manufacturability.[111]

Another effect of modern patent usage is the social benefit(s) of technology disclosure. Although patentees usually end up not reaping benefit from their patent monopoly,[citation needed] the society still benefits from patent disclosures. Also patents both enable and incentivize competitors to design around (or to "invent around" according to R S Praveen Raj) the patented invention.[112] This may promote healthy competition among manufacturers, resulting in gradual improvements of the technology base.[113]

Criticism

edit
Further information: Criticism of patents
See also: Biological patent § Ethics, and United States Patent and Trademark Office § Criticisms

Legal scholars, economists, activists, policymakers, industries, and trade organizations have held differing views on patents and engaged in contentious debates on the subject. Critical perspectives emerged in the nineteenth century that were especially based on the principles of free trade.[114]: 262–263  Contemporary criticisms have echoed those arguments, claiming that patents block innovation and waste resources (e.g. with patent-related overheads) that could otherwise be used productively to improve technology.[115][116][117] These and other research findings that patents decreased innovation because of the following mechanisms:

  • Low quality, already known or obvious patents hamper innovation and commercialization.[118][119][120]
  • Blocking the use of fundamental knowledge with patents creates a "tragedy of the anticommons, where future innovations can not take place outside of a single firm in an entire field".[121]
  • Patents weaken the public domain and innovation that comes from it.[122]
  • Patent thickets, or "an overlapping set of patent rights", in particular slow innovation.[123][124]
  • Broad patents prevent companies from commercializing products and hurt innovation.[125] In the worst case, such broad patents are held by non-practicing entities (patent trolls), which do not contribute to innovation.[126][127] Enforcement by patent trolls of poor quality patents[128] has led to criticism of the patent office as well as the system itself.[129] For example, in 2011, United States business entities incurred $29 billion in direct costs because of patent trolls.[130] Lawsuits brought by "patent assertion companies" made up 61% of all patent cases in 2012, according to the Santa Clara University School of Law.[131]
  • Patents apply a "one size fits all" model to industries with differing needs,[132] that is especially unproductive for the software industry.[133]
  • Rent-seeking by owners of pharmaceutical patents have also been a particular focus of criticism, as the high prices they enable puts life-saving drugs out of reach of many people.[134]
  • "With the partial exception of the pharmaceutical industry, we just do not have clear evidence to support the assumption that patents provide significant incentives to inventive activity".[135]

Boldrin and Levine conclude "Our preferred policy solution is to abolish patents entirely and to find other legislative instruments, less open to lobbying and rent seeking, to foster innovation when there is clear evidence that laissez-faire undersupplies it."[136][137] Abolishing patents may be politically challenging in some[which?] countries,[citation needed] however, as the primary economic theories supporting patent law hold that inventors and innovators need patents to recoup the costs associated with research, inventing, and commercializing;[104] this reasoning is weakened if the new technologies decrease these costs.[138] A 2016 paper argued for substantial weakening of patents because current technologies (e.g. 3D printing, cloud computing, synthetic biology, etc.) have reduced the cost of innovation.[138]

Debates over the usefulness of patents for their primary objective are part of a larger discourse on intellectual property protection, which also reflects differing perspectives on copyright.

Anti-patent initiatives

edit
  • Patents on expensive medications are often used as examples that can highlight the inadequacy of patent-based mechanisms. One workaround solution that has been applied by South Africa in the past is passing explained domestic law that gives the state the right to import inexpensive generic versions without permission and wait for international regulations and incentive-systems to get upgraded at a later point.[139][140][141]
  • In 2020, multiple initiatives, including by India and South Africa, called for a waiver of TRIPS vaccine patents for accelerated deployment of COVID-19 vaccines around the world.[142] However, no mechanisms of alternative medical research and development incentive-systems[143] or technical details of proposed "sharing" after certain amounts of profit[144] were reported and some argue that, instead of intellectual property rights, manufacturing know-how is the main barrier to expanding capacity.[143]
  • The Patent Busting Project is an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) initiative challenging patents that the organization claims are illegitimate and suppress innovation or limit online expression. The initiative launched in 2004 and involves two phases: documenting the damage caused by these patents,[145] and submitting challenges to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).[146][147]
  • Patent critic, Joseph Stiglitz has proposed Prizes as an alternative to patents in order to further advance solutions to global problems such as AIDS.[148][149]
  • In 2012, Stack Exchange launched Ask Patents, a forum for crowdsourcing prior art to invalidate patents.[150]
  • Several authors have argued for developing defensive prior art to prevent patenting based on obviousness using lists[151] or algorithms.[152] For example, a professor of law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, has demonstrated a method to protect DNA research,[151] which could apply to other technology. Chin wrote an algorithm to generate 11 million "obvious" nucleotide sequences to count as prior art and his algorithmic approach has already[153] proven effective at anticipating prior art against oligonucleotide composition claims filed since his publication of the list and has been cited by the U.S. patent office a number of times.[154] More recently, Joshua Pearce developed an open-source algorithm for identifying prior art for 3D printing materials to make such materials obvious by patent standards.[152] As the 3-D printing community is already grappling with legal issues,[155] this development was hotly debated in the technical press.[156][157][158] Chin made the same algorithm-based obvious argument in DNA probes.[154]
  • Google and other technology companies founded the LOT Network in 2014 to combat patent assertion entities by cross-licensing patents, thereby preventing legal action by such entities.[159]

See also

edit
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Patent.

References

edit
  1. ^ a b c d "A patent is not the grant of a right to make or use or sell. It does not, directly or indirectly, imply any such right. It grants only the right to exclude others. The supposition that a right to make is created by the patent grant is obviously inconsistent with the established distinctions between generic and specific patents, and with the well-known fact that a very considerable portion of the patents granted are in a field covered by a former relatively generic or basic patent, are tributary to such earlier patent, and cannot be practiced unless by license thereunder." – Herman v. Youngstown Car Mfg. Co., 191 F. 579, 584–85, 112 CCA 185 (6th Cir. 1911)
  2. ^ "Patents". www.wipo.int. Archived from the original on 2023-05-28. Retrieved 2023-06-22.
  3. ^ Article 27.1. of the TRIPs Agreement.
  4. ^ a b Article 33 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
  5. ^ "What are intellectual property rights?". WTO.org. World Trade Organization. Archived from the original on 2019-07-06. Retrieved 2016-05-23.
  6. ^ a b Stuart Wall; Sonal Minocha; Bronwen Rees (2009). International Business. Financial Times Prentice Hall. p. 43. ISBN 978-0273723721. Archived from the original on 2023-08-28. Retrieved 2021-03-13. (...) patents, trademarks and copyrights. These are often referred to as intellectual property rights (...)
  7. ^ "1502 Definition of a Design [R-08.2012]". Manual of Patent Examining Procedure. USPTO. Archived from the original on 7 January 2015. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  8. ^ "General Information About 35 U.S.C. 161 Plant Patents". USPTO. Archived from the original on 7 January 2015. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  9. ^ Charles Anthon, A Classical Dictionary: Containing An Account of the Principal Proper Names Mentioned in Ancient Authors, And Intended To Elucidate All The Important Points Connected With The Geography, History, Biography, Mythology, And Fine Arts Of The Greeks And Romans Together With An Account Of Coins, Weights, And Measures, With Tabular Values Of The Same, Harper & Bros, 1841, p. 1273.
  10. ^ Phylarchus of Naucratis, "The Deipnosophists, or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus", Translated from Ancient Greek by H.Bohn 12:20, p. 835
  11. ^ Robert Patrick Merges. Patent Law and Policy: Cases and Materials. 7th ed., Chapter 1.[ISBN missing]
  12. ^ "Wolfgang-Pfaller.de: Patentgesetz von Venedig" (in German and Italian). Archived from the original on 2007-06-30.
  13. ^ M. Frumkin, "The Origin of Patents", Journal of the Patent Office Society, March 1945, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, pp. 143 et seq.
  14. ^ Leaffer, Marshall A. (1990). "Book Review. Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The English Patent System, 1660–1800". Articles by Maurer Faculty (666). Archived from the original on 2015-10-04; MacLeod, Christine (1988). Inventing the Industrial Revolution : The English patent system, 1660–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521893992. Archived from the original on 2015-10-04
  15. ^ "Blackstone's Commentaries". Archived from the original on 2008-02-24. Retrieved 2008-02-24. THE king's grants are alſo matter of public record. For, as St. Germyn ſays, the king's excellency is ſo high in the law, that no freehold may be given to the king, nor derived from him, but by matter of record. And to this end a variety of offices are erected, communicating in a regular ſubordination one with another, through which all the king's grants muſt paſs, and be tranſcribed, and enrolled; that the ſame may by narrowly inſpected by his officers, who will inform him if any thing contained therein is improper, or unlawful to be granted. Theſe grants, whether of lands, honours, liberties, franchiſes, or ought beſides, are contained in charters, or letters patent, that is, open letters, literae patentes: ſo called becauſe they are not ſealed up, but expoſed to open view, with the great ſeal pendant at the bottom; and are uſually directed or addreſſed by the king to all his ſubjects at large. And therein they differ from certain other letters of the king, ſealed alſo with his great ſeal, but directed to particular perſons, and for particular purpoſes: which therefore, not being proper for public inſpection, are cloſed up and ſealed on the outſide, and are thereupon called writs cloſe, literae clauſae; and are recorded in the cloſe-rolls, in the ſame manner as the others are in the patent-rolls...
  16. ^ "The 18th century". Intellectual Property Office. Archived from the original on 2014-04-22.
  17. ^ "History of Copyright". UK Intellectual Property Office. 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2007-08-12.
  18. ^ James W. Cortada, "Rise of the knowledge worker, Volume 8 of Resources for the knowledge-based economy", Knowledge Reader Series, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998, p. 141, ISBN 978-0750670586.
  19. ^ Gabriel Galvez-Behar,"La République des inventeurs. Propriété et organisation de l'invention en France, 1791–1922", Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008, ISBN 978-2753506954.
  20. ^ Galvez-Behar, Gabriel (2019-05-27). "The Patent System during the French Industrial Revolution: Institutional Change and Economic Effects". Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook. 60 (1): 31–56. doi:10.1515/jbwg-2019-0003. ISSN 2196-6842. S2CID 195789899. Archived from the original on 2021-08-26. Retrieved 2021-08-26.
  21. ^ Online at Library of Congress: "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875": First Congress, Session II, chapter VII, 1790: "An Act to Promote the Progress of Useful Arts" Archived 2016-01-18 at the Wayback Machine.
  22. ^ "Anniversary of the First Patent Issued in the United States". GovInfo. Archived from the original on 1 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  23. ^ Joseph M. Gabriel, Medical Monopoly: Intellectual Property Rights and the Origins of the Modern Pharmaceutical Industry. University of Chicago Press (2014)[ISBN missing][page needed]
  24. ^ Organization, World Intellectual Property. "PCT Yearly Review 2024" (PDF). www.wipo.int. Retrieved 2024-06-25.
  25. ^ Patent Act of 1790, Chapter 7, 1 Stat. 109–112 (April 10, 1790). "The First United States Patent Statute" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 January 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  26. ^ a b Khan, Zorina B. (1996). "Married Women's Property Laws and Female Commercial Activity: Evidence from United States Patent Records, 1790–1895" (PDF). The Journal of Economic History. 56 (2): 356–388. doi:10.1017/S002205070001648X. S2CID 154441953. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-04-28. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
  27. ^ a b c Marcowitz-Bitton, Miriam; Kaplan, Yotam; Michiko Morris, Emily (2020). "Unregistered Patents & Gender Equality" (PDF). Harvard Journal of Law & Gender. 43: 47. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-06-23. Retrieved 2021-02-26.
  28. ^ Intellectual Property Offiece (March 2016). "Gender Profiles in UK Patenting An analysis of female inventorship" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on June 23, 2021. Retrieved February 26, 2021.
  29. ^ Schulze, Christina (15 March 2019). "The end of quick and dirty? French patent system under scrutiny". JUVE Patent. Archived from the original on 8 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  30. ^ "Column「Soaring Patent Applications in China」". www.rieti.go.jp. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  31. ^ The changing profile of users of the UK patent system. Supporting the innovation ecosystem: Building the evidence base on the drivers of IP. 2021. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1009464/The-changing-profile-of-users-of-the-UK-patent-system.pdf Archived 2023-06-07 at the Wayback Machine
  32. ^ "Facts and figures: patent, trade mark, design and hearing data: 2019". GOV.UK. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  33. ^ Trends and characteristics of patenting activity in Poland in 1990–2018. 2020. Przegląd Statystyczny. 67/3. J. Kwiatkowski, T. Tomaszewski. doi:10.5604/01.3001.0014.7108
  34. ^ "Global patent filings decline by 14% YoY in Q2 2022, mainly led by China, reveals GlobalData". 4 August 2022. Archived from the original on 6 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  35. ^ a b A possible declining trend for worldwide innovation. 2005. Technol Forecast Soc Chang. 72/8, 980–986. J. Huebner. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2005.01.003.
  36. ^ Combinations of technology in US patents, 1926–2009: a weakening base for future innovation? 2018. Econ Innov New Technol. 27/8, 770–785. M.S. Clancy. doi:10.1080/10438599.2017.1410007.
  37. ^ Systematic analysis of 50 years of Stanford University technology transfer and commercialization. 2022. Patterns. 3/9, 9. W.X. Liang, S. Elrod, D.A. Mcfarland, J. Zou. doi:10.1016/j.patter.2022.100584.
  38. ^ Gold ER. The fall of the innovation empire and its possible rise through open science. Research Policy. Jun 2021;50(5):13. 104226. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2021.104226
  39. ^ Kaminska, Izabella (13 September 2017). "It's not about the low hanging fruit, it's about the ideas". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 6 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  40. ^ "The rising cost of research". Science|Business. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  41. ^ a b Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find? 2020. Am Econ Rev. 110/4, 1104–1144. N. Bloom, C.I. Jones, J. Van Reenen, M. Webb. doi:10.1257/aer.20180338.
  42. ^ Bloom, Nicholas, Jones, Charles I., Van Reenen, John, Webb, Michael, 2020. Are Ideas getting harder to find? Am. Econ. Rev. 110 (4), 1104–1144
  43. ^ Are 'Flow of Ideas' and 'Research Productivity' in secular decline? 2022. Technol Forecast Soc Chang. 174/16. P. Cauwels, D. Sornette. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121267.
  44. ^ A possible declining trend for worldwide innovation. 2005. Technol Forecast Soc Chang. 72/8, 980–986. J. Huebner. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2005.01.003
  45. ^ How does technology and population progress relate? An empirical study of the last 10,000 years. 2016. Technol Forecast Soc Chang. 103/57–70. J.L. Dong, W. Li, Y.H. Cao, J.W. Fang. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2015.11.011
  46. ^ "Patent Encumbrances Can Reduce Market Value up to 100 Percent". 13 September 2018. Archived from the original on 6 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  47. ^ a b "Every company is a software company: Six 'must dos' to succeed | McKinsey". www.mckinsey.com. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  48. ^ Media, Newton. "Patent lawsuits and damages on the rise in US". World IP Review. Archived from the original on 6 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  49. ^ Venture Capital and Cleantech: The wrong model for energy innovation. 2017. Energy Policy. 102/385–395. B.E. Gaddy, V. Sivaram, T.B. Jones, L. Wayman. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2016.12.035
  50. ^ Industrial R&D and national innovation policy: an institutional reappraisal of the US national innovation system. 2022. Ind Corp Change. 31/5, 1152–1176. I.A. Shaikh, K. Randhawa. doi:10.1093/icc/dtac019.
  51. ^ IP Canada Report. 2016. https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/canadian-intellectual-property-office/sites/default/files/attachments/2022/IP_Canada_Report_2016_en.pdf Archived 2023-06-07 at the Wayback Machine
  52. ^ "It's Not Just COVID: Understanding the Drop in U.S. Patent Application Filings". 9 February 2022. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  53. ^ Patenting software-related inventions in Europe. 2019. Research Handbook on Patent Law and Theory, 2nd Edition. 106–131. S. Schohe, C. Appelt, H. Goddar. doi:10.4337/9781785364129.00014.
  54. ^ https://www.law360.com/articles/1358644 Archived 2023-06-07 at the Wayback Machine ; https://www.managingip.com/article/2a7cr03ux3sqhecb3m7sw/data-china-firms-patent-filings-fall-after-gov-cancels-subsidies Archived 2023-06-07 at the Wayback Machine
  55. ^ Sariel, Aviram, Daniel Mishori, and Joseph Agassi. "The re-inventor's dilemma: a tragedy of the public domain." Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice 10.10 (2015): 759-766.
  56. ^ Lemley, Mark A.; Shapiro, Carl (2005). "Probabilistic Patents". Journal of Economic Perspectives, Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper No. 288. 19: 75. doi:10.2139/ssrn.567883. S2CID 9296557.
  57. ^ Ford, Roger Allan. "Patent Invalidity Versus Noninfringement" (PDF). Cornell Law Review. 99 (1): 71–128. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-10-17.
  58. ^ Silverman, Arnold B. (1990). "Evaluating the Validity of a United States Patent". JOM. 42 (7): 46. Bibcode:1990JOM....42g..46S. doi:10.1007/bf03221022. S2CID 138751277. Archived from the original on 2016-08-23.
  59. ^ Mallor, Jane (2012). Business Law: The Ethical, Global, and Budiness E-Commerce Environment (15th ed.). McGraw-Hill/Irwin. p. 266. ISBN 978-0073524986.
  60. ^ "Doctrine of Equivalents". LII / Legal Information Institute. Archived from the original on 2021-01-27. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  61. ^ "Contributory Infringement". LII / Legal Information Institute. Archived from the original on 2021-04-18. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  62. ^ "Inducement of Infringement". LII / Legal Information Institute. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  63. ^ Halle, Mark. "The Exhaustion of Intellectual Property Rights" (PDF). IISD Commentary. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-04-22. Retrieved 2020-12-16 – via IISD.
  64. ^ DLA Piper (2005). "Patent Litigation across Europe". cecollect.com. Archived from the original on 2007-10-06.
  65. ^ Katz, Michael L.; Shapiro, Carl (1985). "On the Licensing of Innovations". The RAND Journal of Economics. 16 (4): 504–520. doi:10.2307/2555509. ISSN 0741-6261. JSTOR 2555509. Archived from the original on 2022-02-07. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  66. ^ Schmitz, Patrick W. (2002). "On Monopolistic Licensing Strategies under Asymmetric Information". Journal of Economic Theory. 106 (1): 177–189. doi:10.1006/jeth.2001.2863. Archived from the original on 2022-06-15. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  67. ^ "Problems with Apache license and Others Involving Copyright Uses". Pastebin.com. Archived from the original on 2021-08-29. Retrieved 2021-08-29.
  68. ^ "Assignee (Company) Name". Help Page. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Archived from the original on 2007-08-14. Retrieved 2007-07-25.
  69. ^ See Section 39 of the UK Patents Act Archived 2009-02-25 at the Wayback Machine as an example. The laws across Europe vary from country to country but are generally harmonised. In an Australian context, see University of Western Australia v Gray [2008] FCA 498 AUSTLII Archived 2023-08-28 at the Wayback Machine
  70. ^ Sonnemaker, Tyler. "No, an artificial intelligence can't legally invent something – only 'natural persons' can, says US patent office". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 3 January 2021. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  71. ^ Article 28.2 TRIPs Archived 2017-06-22 at the Wayback Machine: "Patent owners shall also have the right to assign, or transfer by succession, the patent and to conclude licensing contracts.".
  72. ^ Staff, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) FAQ Archived 2013-02-25 at the Wayback Machine
  73. ^ United Kingdom law requiring no explicit authority due to the Supremacy of Parliament.
  74. ^ "Intellectual property: protection and enforcement". World Trade Organization. Archived from the original on August 28, 2023. Retrieved June 16, 2022.
  75. ^ "Chapter 3, International Phase of the PCT Applicant's Guide". www.wipo.int. Archived from the original on 2021-02-26. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  76. ^ "Patent Law Treaty (PLT)". www.wipo.int. Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  77. ^ "WTO | intellectual property – TRIPS and public health: Compulsory licensing of pharmaceuticals and TRIPS". www.wto.org. Archived from the original on 2020-12-19. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  78. ^ Wendland, W (2022). "International negotiations on Indigenous knowledge to resume at WIPO: a view of the journey so far and the way ahead". WIPO. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  79. ^ Muñoz Tellez, Viviana (2023-03-14). The WIPO Diplomatic Conference for a Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge (PDF). Policy Brief Nº. 117. Geneva: South Centre.
  80. ^ a b Cannabis Embassy, Commission on Biopiracy (2024). "WIPO's Diplomatic Conference & New Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge (GRATK): A new Treaty against Biopiracy". cannabisembassy.org. Retrieved 2024-05-26.
  81. ^ WIPO (2024-05-24). WIPO Treaty on intellectual property, genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge (PDF). Geneva: WIPO (published 2024).
  82. ^ "Nations agree landmark treaty on traditional knowledge, protecting Indigenous Peoples' rights | UN News". news.un.org. 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-26.
  83. ^ "WIPO Member States Adopt Historic New Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge". www.wipo.int. Retrieved 2024-05-26.
  84. ^ "New treaty addresses intellectual property for genetic resources and traditional knowledge". The Gisborne Herald. 2024-06-13. Retrieved 2024-07-31.
  85. ^ Indigenous Caucus of the WIPO GRATK Diplomatic Conference (2024-05-28). "Indigenous Caucus Closing Statement: International Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources & Associated Traditional Knowledge; May 24, 2024". Cosmovisiones Ancestrales. Retrieved 2024-07-31.
  86. ^ "Un traité historique qui restaure la dignité des peuples autochtones". Le Temps (in French). 2024-05-24. ISSN 1423-3967. Retrieved 2024-07-31.
  87. ^ "Diamond v. Chakrabarty". Oyez. Chicago-Kent College of Law. Archived from the original on 2021-01-02. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  88. ^ "Bioethics and Patent Law: The Case of the Oncomouse". www.wipo.int. Archived from the original on 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  89. ^ "Patent Requirements (BitLaw)". www.bitlaw.com. Archived from the original on 2020-11-11. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  90. ^ "What does 'patent pending' mean?". Archived from the original on 29 August 2011.
  91. ^ USPTO web site, Patent Marking and "Patent Pending" (Excerpted from General Information Concerning Patents print brochure) Archived 2009-08-02 at the Wayback Machine, Consulted on August 5, 2009.
  92. ^ UK Intellectual Property Office web site, Display your rights Archived 2009-09-03 at the Wayback Machine, (under "IPO Home> Types of IP> Patents> Managing your patents> Using and enforcing") Consulted on August 5, 2009.
  93. ^ "USPTO fee schedule". 8 March 2023.
  94. ^ Twenty years of US nanopatenting: Maintenance renewal scoring as an indicator of patent value. 2023. World Pat Inf. 73/. A.L. Porter, M. Markley, R. Snead, N.C. Newman. doi: 10.1016/j.wpi.2023.102178.
  95. ^ With the following assumptions: "18 pages (11 pages description, 3 pages claims, 4 pages drawings), 10 claims, patent validated in 6 countries (Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland), excl. in-house preparation costs for the patentee" (the costs relate to European patents granted in 2002/2003), in European Patent Office, The cost of a sample European patent – new estimates Archived 2008-05-27 at the Wayback Machine, 2005, p. 1.
  96. ^ The persistence of worthless patents? 2023. World Pat Inf. 72/. A. Schwall, J. Wagner. doi: 10.1016/j.wpi.2023.102179.
  97. ^ "Ecuador Reversed the Increase of Its Patent Fees: Decreases It by 90% – Patent – Ecuador".
  98. ^ a b Lemley, Mark A (2001). "Rational Ignorance at the Patent Office". Northwestern University Law Review. 95 (4). doi:10.2139/ssrn.261400. S2CID 154339316. Archived from the original on 2020-07-27. Retrieved 2020-09-02.
  99. ^ "Holland & Bonzagni a full Service IP Law Firm in Western Massachusetts". www.hblaw.org. Archived from the original on 14 April 2016. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  100. ^ Bessen, James; Meurer, Michael James (2008). Patent failure: how judges, bureaucrats, and lawyers put innovators at risk. Princeton University Press. p. 132. ISBN 978-0691134918.. Based on an American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) survey of patent lawyers (2005), and court documents for a sample of 89 court cases where one side was ordered to pay the other side's legal fees. The containing chapter ('The Costs of Disputes') also tries to quantify associated business costs.
  101. ^ a b c d Klinkert, Friedrich (April 2012). The Misappropriation of Trade Secrets in Germany and U.S. Discovery Aid. MIPLC Lecture Series. p. 6. Archived from the original on June 8, 2012. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  102. ^ Klinkert, Friedrich (April 2012). The Misappropriation of Trade Secrets in Germany and U.S. Discovery Aid. MIPLC Lecture Series. p. 7. Archived from the original on June 8, 2012. Retrieved May 6, 2012.
  103. ^ a b Markey, Howard T. (9 June 1975). "Special Problems in Patent Cases". Journal of the Patent Office Society. 57: 675. Archived from the original on 9 November 2016. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  104. ^ a b Olson, D.S. (2009). "Taking the Utilitarian Basis for Patent Law Seriously: The Case for Restricting Patentable Subject Matter". Temple Law Review. 82: 1.
  105. ^ The 2009 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard Archived 2010-03-30 at the Wayback Machine produced by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies
  106. ^ Technological profiles for global companies Archived 2010-03-27 at the Wayback Machine by analysing their patent portfolios
  107. ^ Baten, Jörg; Labuske, Kirsten (2009). "On the Persistence of Human Capital and Patient Effects Around 1900 on Per Capita Levels in the 1960s". Brussels Economic Review. 52-2/3: 289–304.
  108. ^ Stack, Alexander James (2011). International Patent Law: Cooperation, Harmonization, and an Institutional Analysis of WIPO and the WTO. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 978-1849806091.
  109. ^ Pooley, J. and Westman, D.P., 1997. Trade secrets. Law Journal Seminars-Press.[ISBN missing][page needed]
  110. ^ Jim Kerstetter. 2012. How much is that patent lawsuit going to cost you?. CNET. "How much is that patent lawsuit going to cost you?". Archived from the original on 2016-08-23. Retrieved 2016-08-20.
  111. ^ Stim, Rishand, "Profit from Your Idea: How to Make Smart Licensing Decisions", ISBN 1413304508 (2006) [page needed]
  112. ^ "Thehindubusinessline.com". thehindubusinessline.com. Archived from the original on 24 October 2007. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  113. ^ Kim, Linsui (2002). "Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Rights: Lessons from Korea's Experience". Unctad/Ictsd. UNCTAD/ICTSD Working Paper.
  114. ^ Johns, Adrian (15 January 2010). Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226401201. Retrieved 9 June 2023 – via Google Books.
  115. ^ Levine, David; Michele Boldrin (2008). Against intellectual monopoly (PDF). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521879286. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2008-05-28.
  116. ^ Kinsella, N.S. (2001). "Against Intellectual Property" (PDF). Journal of Libertarian Studies. 15 (2): 1–53. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2013-11-01.
  117. ^ "Kinsella, S., 2013. The Case Against Intellectual Property. In Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands" (PDF). pp. 1325–1357. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 October 2016. Retrieved 9 June 2023.
  118. ^ Lemley, M.A.; Shapiro, C. (2005). "Probabilistic patents" (PDF). The Journal of Economic Perspectives. 19 (2): 75–98. doi:10.1257/0895330054048650. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2005-11-18.
  119. ^ "Miller, S.P., 2013. Where's the Innovation: An Analysis of the Quantity and Qualities of Anticipated and Obvious Patents. Va. JL & Tech., 18, p. 1" (PDF). vjolt.net. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 October 2016. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  120. ^ "McCall, D.D., 2003. Stating the Obvious: Patents and Biological Material. U. Ill. JL Tech. & Pol'y, p. 239" (PDF). illinoisjltp.com. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 October 2016. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  121. ^ Heller, Michael; Eisenberg, Sue (May 1, 1998). "Can Patents Deter Innovation? The Anticommons in Biomedical Research". Science. 280 (5364): 698–701. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.336.6070. doi:10.1126/science.280.5364.698. PMID 9563938. S2CID 31902564.
  122. ^ Outterson, K (2005). "Vanishing Public Domain: Antibiotic Resistance, Pharmaceutical Innovation and Intellectual Property Law". U. Pitt. L. Rev. 67: 67. doi:10.5195/lawreview.2005.70.
  123. ^ Joel, D (2009). "Pools, thickets and Open Source Nanotechnology". European Intellectual Property Review. 31: 300–306.
  124. ^ Shapiro, Carl (2001). "Navigating the Patent Thicket: Cross Licenses, Patent Pools, and Standard-Setting" (PDF). In Jaffe, Adam B.; et al. (eds.). Innovation Policy and the Economy. Vol. I. Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 119–150. ISBN 978-0262600415.
  125. ^ Burk, D; Lemley, M (2002). "Is patent law technology-specific?". Berkeley Technol Law J. 17: 1155–1206.
  126. ^ Magliocca, G.N. (2007). "Blackberries and barnyards: Patent trolls and the perils of innovation" (PDF). Notre Dame Law Review. 82: 1809–1838. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-08-16. Retrieved 2017-12-10.
  127. ^ Merges, R.P. (2010). "The Trouble with Trolls: Innovation, Rent-Seeking, and Patent Law Reform". Berkeley Technology Law Journal. 24: 1583. Archived from the original on 2017-12-11. Retrieved 2017-12-10.
  128. ^ Allison, J.R.; Mann, R.J. (2007). "Disputed Quality of Software Patents". The. Wash. UL Rev. 85: 297.
  129. ^ Barker, David G. (2005). "Troll or no Troll? Policing Patent Usage with an Open Post-grant Review". Duke Law & Technology Review. 9 (11). Archived from the original on 9 March 2013. Retrieved 9 June 2013.
  130. ^ "'Patent trolls' cost other US bodies $29bn last year, says study". BBC. June 29, 2012. Archived from the original on June 27, 2012.
  131. ^ Goldman, David (July 2, 2013). "Patent troll: 'I'm ethical and moral'". CNN. Archived from the original on July 6, 2013.
  132. ^ Richard A Posner for The Atlantic. July 12, 2012. Why There Are Too Many Patents in America Archived 2017-03-10 at the Wayback Machine
  133. ^ Bessen, James, and Michael J. Meurer. Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1400828692[page needed]
  134. ^ Banta, D.H. (2001). "Worldwide Interest in Global Access to Drugs". Journal of the American Medical Association. 285 (22): 2844–2846. doi:10.1001/jama.285.22.2844-jmn0613-3-1. PMID 11401589.
  135. ^ Biagioli, M. (2019). Weighing intellectual property: Can we balance the social costs and benefits of patenting? History of Science, 57(1), 140–163. doi:10.1177/0073275318797787
  136. ^ Boldrin, M.; Levine, D.K. (2013). "The case against patents". The Journal of Economic Perspectives. 27 (1): 3–22. doi:10.1257/jep.27.1.3.
  137. ^ McKendrick, J., 2012. Time to eliminate patents altogether? Fed paper urges more open innovation. ZDNet. Available at: "Time to eliminate patents altogether? Fed paper urges more open innovation". ZDNet. Archived from the original on 2016-08-21. Retrieved 2016-08-20.
  138. ^ a b Osborn, Lucas; Pearce, Joshua M.; Haselhuhn, Amberlee (9 June 2015). "The Case for Weaker Patents". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2585764. Archived from the original on 7 January 2023. Retrieved 9 June 2023 – via www.academia.edu.
  139. ^ "There's a Precedent for Overriding Patents on Vital Medications". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2023-08-28. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
  140. ^ Amin, Tahir (27 June 2018). "High drug prices caused by US patent system, not 'foreign freeloaders'". CNBC. Archived from the original on 23 November 2021. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
  141. ^ Vincent Rajkumar, S. (23 June 2020). "The high cost of prescription drugs: causes and solutions". Blood Cancer Journal. 10 (6): 71. doi:10.1038/s41408-020-0338-x. ISSN 2044-5385. PMC 7311400. PMID 32576816.
  142. ^ "WTO again fails to agree on Covid vaccine patent waiver". Archived from the original on 16 November 2021. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  143. ^ a b Feinmann, Jane (28 October 2021). "Covid-19: global vaccine production is a mess and shortages are down to more than just hoarding". BMJ. 375: n2375. doi:10.1136/bmj.n2375. PMID 34711605. S2CID 240001631. Archived from the original on 16 November 2021. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  144. ^ "Canada lacks 'political will' to waive COVID-19 vaccine patents, Bolivian minister says | Globalnews.ca". Global News. Archived from the original on 15 November 2021. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  145. ^ "Patent Busting Project". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Archived from the original on 2020-08-06. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  146. ^ "Patent Office to Review VoIP Patent". PCWorld. 2010-02-05. Archived from the original on 27 September 2016. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  147. ^ "Novell signs on to EFF patent busting project". arstechnica.com. 2007-05-23. Archived from the original on 22 October 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  148. ^ Nalebuff, Barry J.; Stiglitz, Joseph E. (1983). "Prizes and Incentives: Towards a General Theory of Compensation and Competition". The Bell Journal of Economics. 14 (1): 21–43. doi:10.2307/3003535. JSTOR 3003535.
  149. ^ Stiglitz, Joseph E. (1988). "Economic organization, information, and development". Handbook of Development Economics. Vol. 1. pp. 93–160. doi:10.1016/s1573-4471(88)01008-3. ISBN 978-0444703378.
  150. ^ Singel, Ryan (2012-09-20). "Open Season on Patents Starts Thursday, Thanks to Crowdsourced Platform". Wired. Archived from the original on 21 October 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  151. ^ a b Chin, Andrew (2005). "Artful prior art and the quality of DNA patents" (PDF). Alabama Law Review. 57: 975. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-10-17. Retrieved 2016-08-20.
  152. ^ a b Pearce, Joshua (2015). "A Novel Approach to Obviousness: An Algorithm for Identifying Prior Art Concerning 3-D Printing Materials". World Patent Information. 42: 13–18. doi:10.1016/j.wpi.2015.07.003. S2CID 106963553. Archived from the original on 2022-04-11. Retrieved 2016-08-20.
  153. ^ Chin, Andrew. "Gene Probes As Unpatentable Printed Matter" (PDF). The Federal Circuit Bar Journal. 20 (4). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-10-17. Retrieved 2016-08-20.
  154. ^ a b Chin, Andrew (2010). "Gene Probes As Unpatentable Printed Matter" (PDF). The Federal Circuit Bar Journal. 20 (4): 527. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-10-17. Retrieved 2016-08-20.
  155. ^ What are the legal aspects of 3D printing? A European law firm weighs in. Archived 2016-09-13 at the Wayback Machine – 3Ders
  156. ^ Shots Fired: The 3D Printing Materials IP War Has Begun as Joshua Pearce Releases Algorithm for Obviousness Archived 2016-08-18 at the Wayback Machine – 3DPrint
  157. ^ New Algorithm Fights to Keep 3D Printing Materials Open to All Archived 2016-05-24 at the Wayback Machine – 3D Printing Industry
  158. ^ Joshua Pearce creates new algorithm for obviousness to prevent 3D printing material patents Archived 2016-10-17 at the Wayback Machine – 3ders
  159. ^ "Tech, auto companies join forces to thwart patent trolls". 2016-02-03. Archived from the original on 2016-06-13. Retrieved 2016-08-23.

Further reading

edit
edit
 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Patents.
 
Look up patent in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Patent&oldid=1259214540"