Showing posts with label patent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label patent. Show all posts

Friday, April 30, 2010

On the limits of patent protection

Patent on diagnostic testing for genetic susceptibility to the most common hereditary forms of breast and ovarian cancer held invalid.

Friday, November 20, 2009

IT-Branchenverband BIKT zum "dritten Korb" der Urheberrechtsreform

Aus der Pressemitteilung: "Der BIKT ...fordert das BMJ dazu auf, durch eine geeignete Regelung im Urheberrecht dafür zu sorgen, dass patentrechtliche Verbotsansprüche gegenüber Computerprogrammen keine Wirkung entfalten können. Der Verband plädiert daher für die Einführung einer „Schutzschirmklausel“, die die gesetzliche Absicherung des Urheberrechtsschutzes für Computerprogramme gegenüber dem Patentrecht gewährleistet".

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Oral argument in In Re Bilski before the US Supreme Court

See the transcript. Justice Breyer posed a slightly provoking question: "You know, I have a great, wonderful, really original method of teaching antitrust law, and it kept 80 percent of the students awake. They learned things --
(Laughter.)
JUSTICE BREYER: It was fabulous. And I could probably have reduced it to a set of steps and other teachers could have followed it. That you are going to say is patentable, too?
MR. JAKES: Potentially".

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Friday, August 28, 2009

F. M. Scherer on Patent Policy: Some Recommendations for Competition Authorities

From THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PATENT POLICY REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES: "For the federal antitrust agencies, the extension of patent monopolies in time through profuse improvement patenting and their extension in scope through restrictive cross-licensing agreements pose important enforcement problems. Here too, the problem is in part one of education. Those who manage the antitrust agencies need to learn that there are important barriers to rapid imitation, enhancing incentives for innovation, other than the patent system, so maximization of monopoly rewards associated with patent holdings is unlikely to maximize economic welfare. These agencies need to learn that extension of patent monopolies over time and in scope is more likely to suppress than stimulate innovation. and insisting that drug production be opened up for generic competition once basic patents have expired, leaving however the right to produce validly patented improvement molecules exclusively in the hands of the original drug developer (or any other firm that patents and tests improved variants)"