Reforming the patent system

Science

Volumn 287, Issue 5460, 2000, Pages 1933-1934

  Barton, John H ^b   Osborne, George E ^a  

^a STANFORD LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMICS; LAW; LICENCE; PATENT; POLITICS; PRIORITY JOURNAL; RESEARCH; SHORT SURVEY; STANDARD; ARTICLE; LEGAL ASPECT; UNITED STATES;

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY; PATENTS; RESEARCH; UNITED STATES;

EID: 0034677649     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.287.5460.1933     Document Type: Short Survey

References (25)

1. Lawyer numbers are the membership of the Section on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyright of the American Bar Association, taken from the introductions to that Section's annual reports and, for 1997, estimated from information on its Web site. Inflation-corrected overall research expenditures are from National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators - 1998 (National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA, 1998).
2. Derived from a survey by the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), Report of Economic Survey 1999 (AIPLA, Arlington, VA, 1999), tables 21 and 22.
3. Polaroid Corp. v. Eastman Kodak Co., 641 F. Supp. 828 (D. Mass. 1985).
4. See F. Warshofsky, The Patent Wars: The Battle to Own the World's Technology (Wiley, New York, 1994), pp. 122-123.
5. B. Hall and R. Ham, "The patent paradox revisited: Determinants of patenting in the U.S. semiconductor industry" (Working Paper 7062, National Bureau of Economic Research, prepared for NBER Patent System and Innovation Conference, 8 to 9 January 1999, San Diego; revised March 1999).
6. Studiengesellschaft Kohle v. Dart Indus. Inc., 726 F.2d 724 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
7. Amgen, Inc. v. Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., 927 F.2d 1200 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
8. See Report of the NIH Working Group on Research Tools (1998), available at http://www.nih.gov/news/ researchtools/index.htm.
9. M. A. Heller and R. S. Eisenberg, Science 280, 698 (1998).
10. 383 U.S. 519 (1966).
11. 64 Fed. Reg. 71440 (21 Dec. 1999).
12. J. Skolnick et al., U.S. Patent 5,933,819, 3 August 1999.
13. Another important direction to consider is modifying the enablement doctrine to narrow patent claims.
14. See R. Eisenberg, Univ. Chicago Law Rev. 56, 1017 (1989). There is also a specific U.S. statutory research exemption for firms preparing to market drugs as the patents on the drugs expire, 35 U.S.C. § 271(e).
15. Such an approach can probably be designed consistently with the Uruguay Round Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property. Article 30 of that agreement permits certain limited exceptions to exclusive rights, and French law has long permitted a compulsory license in a similar circumstance.
16. D. Voss, Science 284, 1252 (1999).
17. USPTO Reexamination Statistics, Appendix C in A Report to the Secretary of Commerce: The Advisory Commission on Patent Law Reform, August 1992 [1985-1991 Statistics] (The Commission, Washington, DC, 1992).
18. 35 U.S.C. § 282.
19. Based on PTO application statistics and on examiner numbers for 1993 (E. Wayne, personal communication, 12 July 1999), the PTO handles about 80 applications per examiner per year, with a slight long-term downward trend.
20. H. Manbeck, former Commissioner of the PTO, has testified that the examiner spends 15 to 17 hours per application [Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. v. Schering-Plough Corp., 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16989 at 49 (DNJ 1999)].
21. The median numbers of applications filed annually by lawyers who spent 50% or more of their time developing protection ranged from 11 to 20 [AIPLA, see table 13 in (2)].
22. Based on the $1.5 million median cost of patent litigation. Even at a legal fee of $300 per hour (and much of the litigation team will receive less) this amounts to more than 5000 hours.
23. Statement by PTO Commissioner Q. T. Dickinson in S. Zeller, Clin. Exec. (February), 39 (2000).
24. Public Law 106-113, 29 November 1999.
25. European Patent Convention, arts. 93 and 115.