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This study analyzes 134 invalidated traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) patents from 1984 to 2021 to explore common weaknesses and track quality progression. The findings highlight that TCM patents applied for between 2001 and 2005 face higher invalidation rates, with disputes often arising 4–7 years post-application. Disputes are concentrated in patents related to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, exacerbated by widespread geographical distribution and technology saturation. Combination patents are more prone to invalidation than single-component ones, and patents using preparation methods to describe products carry hidden risks. Additionally, citing more references positively impacts patent stability. Despite progress, TCM patents still encounter significant challenges in quality and consistency.

We investigate the causal effect of intangible capital on leverage. To address endogeneity, we exploit patent invalidations by a U.S. court in which judges are randomly assigned to cases. Differences in judge leniency provide exogenous variation in the probability that firms' patents are invalidated. Using this probability as an instrument for exogenous losses in intangible capital, we find a patent invalidation leads to a 14.1% reduction in leverage, suggesting that intangible capital causally supports leverage. This local average treatment effect is stronger in firms that use patents as loan collateral and in less creditworthy as well as smaller firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On July 28, 2021, the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience ("DABUS") became the first computer to be recognized as a patent inventor. Due to the advocacy of DABUS's inventor, Dr. Stephen Thaler, the world's definition of "inventor" has finally fractured - dividing patent regimes between recognition of machine inventorship and lack thereof. This division has sparked many scholarly conversations about inventorship contribution, but none have discussed the implications of a homographic inventorship. This Article addresses the implications of international homographic inventorship - where countries have different notions and rules concerning patent inventorship - and the consequences for failing to understand the divergences that could result in patent invalidation. This Article adds to the literature by addressing Thaler's tireless inventorship advocacy, highlighting that Thaler uses his position of privilege to argue for inventorship acknowledgement of his machine and simultaneously to relinquish his own inventorship recognition. To emphasize, there is no existing caselaw except the DABUS case where a potential inventor has argued for the acknowledgement of another inventor and simultaneously relinquished their own recognition - whether that unacknowledged inventor was human or not human. Thaler's advocacy amplifies the need for continued conversation regarding closing the patent inventorship gap for women and underrepresented minorities of color, who are too often tokenized and marginalized in STEM and in the patent process. By bringing the definition of inventor to the forefront, the DABUS case represents more than just a case of AI inventorship: it is a potential gateway to provide language and arguments to frame conversations about inventorship equity. In particular, the unique instance of Thaler's inventorship advocacy for his machine prompts questions about why inventors from privileged positions do not advocate for inventors from historically marginalized backgrounds. Based on a review of patent case law and sociology studies concerning power dynamics and communal recognition, this Article provides recommendations to address this issue and accelerate the stagnant process of achieving inventorship equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a series of policies to stimulate innovation and patent activities, China has become a world leader in both patent applications and patent litigation. These major developments, together with the escalated US-China trade tensions, have made China an integral but controversial venue for international patent protection. The Chinese patent system, especially its detailed practice and cases, is in need of a comprehensive empirical study. This article analyzed 8766 Chinese patent invalidity cases decided between 2014 and 2016, which, together with my prior work on patent infringement lawsuits, offers a comprehensive picture on how the bifurcated patent system in China works. First, it found that only a small number, about 2.0 percent, of Chinese patents are ever subject to infringement or invalidity disputes, shedding light on the patent office's rational ignorance of a patent's validity at first place. Second, it found that the invalidity rate for invention patents in China (54.6%) was lower than in many other countries, such as the US (83.9%) and Germany (73%), indicating that the Chinese patent system is more pro-patentee than once believed. Third, it raised the question of Chinese patents' quality based on various characteristics of these cases, including patent types and petitioners' entity status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional view is that the Patent Office examines patent applications before issuance to assure compliance with the statutory criteria of patentability. Ex post invalidation in district court litigation or Patent Office cancellation proceedings then reviews the Patent Office's work to correct errors that result from the Patent Office's shortcomings, bias, or "rational ignorance" that limits resources spent on examination because of the irrelevance of most patents. Scholars, the Federal Circuit, and the Supreme Court have all endorsed this conventional view. However, it is wrong--or at least overly simplistic. The American patent system is only partially a system of ex ante patent examination. In other respects, it functions as a registration system where significant aspects of patentability determinations are left entirely to ex post patent invalidation in litigation and administrative proceedings. Even if the Patent Office was allocated greater resources and its examiners performed their assigned tasks perfectly, full evaluation of patentability would be impossible due to structural features of examination that exclude certain categories of prior art, prevent evaluation of the full extent of the patent owner's exclusive rights, and allow only a snapshot evaluation of a patentability question that changes over time. Given that parts of the patentability evaluation are structurally impossible in examination, the role of ex post invalidation is more nuanced than traditionally described. In some instances, it performs a review function to correct errors in the Patent Office's examination. In other instances, however, it serves an examination function to provide a first-instance evaluation of the aspects of patentability which are structurally unsuited for ex ante examination. Yet, the design of the patent system does not reflect the structural limits of examination or varied roles of ex post invalidation. A proper understanding of patent examination and invalidation sheds light on current debates over the presumption of validity, administrative patent cancellation, and the role of ex ante examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A problem that could be posed regarding patent license contract is the effect of patent invalidation in case of lack of novelty and inventive step. Under article 18 of Patents, Industrial Designs and Trademarks Act, the effect of patent invalidation on the basis of lack of novelty and inventive step is from registration, that is, there was no patent. It can be said that since the use of voided invention was free for all, the contract is invalid for the lack of consideration and hence, licensee can be restituted the paid royalties although he benefited from license advantages. However, it should be noted that licensee that calculated license cost in final price and benefited from real monopoly, by restitution of paid royalties, enriches in non- agreed trade which is an example of akle-bel-batel. Also, it can reduce inventors motive to register their inventions and also delay the challenge of the invalidity of improper patent in a court and its invalidation. From comparative law perspective, licensee who had benefited from license advantages, cannot ask restitution of paid royalties and it is recommended to be considered in the said Act amendment.

Since the first EU case in 2013, pay-for-delay agreements have been considered a restriction of competition by object under Article 101 TFEU. However, according to parties to these agreements, the harm caused to consumers can be balanced out by efficiencies in terms of increased incentives to innovate. The aim of this thesis is to assess this efficiency argument by studying the effect of pay-for-delay agreements on innovation. It appears from the analysis that this effect partly depends on the innovation cycle it relates to: either first-generation innovation or subsequent innovation. The impact on first-generation innovation is studied sequentially, by reference to the literature, for three dimensions of innovation: returns on innovation, R&D investments and the innovative output. We conclude that first-generation innovation is either promoted or non-affected. Subsequent innovation is then studied from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. The theoretical analysis focuses on two distinct issues: the incentives for first-generation innovators to invest in an improved version of their patented invention, and the ability of follow-on innovators to use existing knowledge. Based on this theoretical analysis, we put forward the revocation of a patent as a proxy for pay-for-delay agreements. We further use this assumption to design an empirical model whose objective is to estimate these agreements' effect on innovation. We conclude that second-generation innovation is either unaffected or hindered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent damage awards in patent infringement litigation have demonstrated the legal and financial risks that firms experience when attempting to illicitly utilize, commercialize and/or incrementally improve upon these protected intellectual properties (IPs). Given this legal environment, the present paper seeks to examine the current patent system in the United States with the intent of documenting the legal basis for infringement. Through a comprehensive review of statutory and case law, the paper also analyzes defensive litigation strategies which can be used to permit firms to create product substitutes for patented IPs while avoiding the legal censure of patent infringement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's views about the different claim construction standards that have converged in American legal practice as of 2017, and it mentions inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, post-grant proceedings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), and America's Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011. The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board and the claim construction standard that was established in the Phillips v. AWH Corp. patent invalidity case are assessed.

The article discusses the American patent law system's Inter Partes Review (IPR) process in relation to the rent-seeking behavior of Invalidity Assertion Entities (IAEs) which are known to threaten to invalidate a patent if its owner refuses to pay a monetary sum. The similarities and differences between IAEs and patent trolls (nonpracticing entities) are addressed, along with the business strategies of IAEs, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and U.S. federal and state laws.

The traditional parties in patent litigation are technologically savvy competitors. Yet recently, patent owners have begun hauling end users— including farmers, small cafes, and podcasters—into patent disputes. This Article shows that end users, unlike competitors, cannot take proactive measures to protect their interests in defending against patent enforcement. The standing doctrine impedes end users’ access to federal court to challenge a patent’s validity in a declaratory judgment action. At the same time, standing and timing requirements prevent end users from taking advantage of the new procedures created under the America Invents Act to challenge patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”). This Article argues that although standing requirements impose a significant obstacle for competitors as well as end users, the unique characteristics o f end users place them in a particular predicament. First, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit requires that plaintiffs filing a declaratory judgment suit show that they undertook “meaningful preparations” to use the patented technology. Yet since users “use ’’ but do not “make ” technology, they often do not engage in complex preparations. Second, the Federal Circuit requires plaintiffs to point to enforcement acts by the patentee, known as the reasonable apprehension test. Users, however, are usually part of a large group, and those users who have been sued or threatened with suit are not necessarily the ones with the motivation and resources to file declaratory judgment suits. Third, patent enforcement against other similarly situated parties is more likely to chill a user’s engagement with a patented technology than a competitor’s engagement because users usually lack the technological sophistication to assess the validity of a patent threat. Fourth, the standing doctrine does not protect users because it assumes competitors will defend them. Yet the involuntary appearance of thousands o f users on the defense side of patent litigation underscores the fallacy o f this assumption. Fifth, end users typically enter patent conflicts late in the life o f the patent. By that point, most procedures at the PTO—the forum to challenge patents outside federal court—are unavailable to them. This Article concludes that although end users ’ current standing status is unclear, end users should qualify for standing under the Federal Circuit’s currently diluted reasonable apprehension test. This Article also concludes that end users can satisfy the meaningful preparations test because they do not need complex preparations, which fulfills the immediacy criteria of the test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on post-grant review and evaluating the institutional features of ex post patent validity review in the administrative agency setting of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (UPTO). It mentions ex post patent validity challenge mechanisms under the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act with patent validity review mechanisms. It mentions issuance of U.S. patent rights as a precursor to transactions and assessments of economic value.

Although tensions between universality and exceptionalism apply throughout law, they are particularly pronounced in patent law, a field that deals with highly technical subject matter. This Article explores these tensions by investigating an underappreciated descriptive theory of Supreme Court patent jurisprudence. Significantly extending previous scholarship, it argues that the Court's recent decisions reflect a project of eliminating "patent exceptionalism" and assimilating patent doctrine to general legal principles (or, more precisely, to what the Court frames as general legal principles). Among other motivations, this trend responds to rather exceptional patent doctrine emanating from the Federal Circuit in areas as varied as appellate review of lower courts, remedies, and the award of attorney's fees. The Supreme Court has consistently sought to eliminate patent exceptionalism in these and other areas, bringing patent law in conformity with general legal standards. Among other implications, this development reveals the Supreme Court's holistic outlook as a generalist court concerned with broad legal consistency, concerns which are less pertinent to the quasi-specialized Federal Circuit. Turning to normative considerations, this Article argues in favor of selective, refined exceptionalism for patent law. Although the Supreme Court should strive for broad consistency, certain unique features of patent law-particularly the role and expertise of the Federal Circuit-justify some departure from general legal norms. Finally, this Article turns to tensions between legal universality and exceptionalism more broadly, articulating principles to guide the deviation of specialized areas of law from transcendent principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New patent information service, J-PlatPat, was launched on March 23rd 2015. The major update for English speaker is a keyword search service in English for Japanese classification (FI, F-terms) in Patent Map Guidance (PMGS). Some other tools and information are provided to find adequate FI and F-terms for English speaker. This article addresses FI/ F-terms, keyword search and these tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The GB Industrial Revolution (c. 1760-1850) resulted in a vast expansion in industrial activity of which one of the most lucrative was textile production, especially cotton which is rather surprising as the raw cotton was imported vast distances. How this came about is discussed with reference to the crucial patents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on several U.S. Court cases related to intellectual property (IP) and technology law. The cases discussed include Delano Farms Co. v. California Table Grape Commission on patents' validity on grounds of sovereign immunity, Helferich Patent Licensing, LLC v. New York Times Co. on patent claims and Sam Francis Foundation v. Christie's, Inc. on failure to pay mandatory royalties under the California Resale Royalties Act.

The article focuses on the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the cases Fresenius USA, Inc. v. Baxter International, Inc. and ePlus, Inc. v. Lawson Software, Inc. which found that judgments were not sufficiently final to preclude the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) determinations of patent invalidity. It mentions that pre- and post-America Invents Act (AIA) patent litigation landscape.

The article focuses on the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the case Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals U.S.A, Inc. regarding the assessment of the reasonable expectation of success of pharmaceutical and chemical inventions. It mentions that the Court held that Bristol-Myers Squibb's patent for Entecavir, a drug used to treat chronic hepatitis B, was invalid and Bristol-Myers and Teva Pharmaceuticals alleging patent infringement.

The article focuses on the definiteness requirement in patent claims which clearly defines what will be protected by the patent and what constitutes patent infringement. Topics discussed include the patentability of inventions, the role of the patent system in promoting innovation and competition, and the ability of a defendant who is accused of patent infringement to claim patent invalidity due to indefiniteness. The standard of the United States Patent and Trademark Office is discussed.

The article discusses the trends in the invalidation of pharmaceutical patents in Korea. Topics include the Supreme Court decisions pertaining to selection invention, legal standard of selection invention and policy justifications on patentability with regard to selection invention. Also examined is the hostility of the Supreme Court to patentees and applicants of selection inventions.

The Information Systems around patents are complex, their study coupled with a creative vision of "out of the box", overcomes the strict basic functions of the patent. We have, on several occasions, guiding research around the patent solely-based on information, since the writing of new patents; invalidation of existing patents, the creation of value-added information and their links to other Information Systems. The traditional R&D based on heavy investments is one type of technology transfer. But, patent information is also, another powerful tool of technology transfer, innovation and creativity. Indeed, conduct research on the patent, from an academic viewpoint, although not always focusing only on financial revenue, can be considered as a form of "Non Practicing Entities" (NPE) activity, called rightly or wrongly "Patent Trolls". We'll see why the term "patent troll" for this activity is controversial and inappropriate. The research we will describe in this paper falls within this context. We show two case studies of efficient use of patent information in Emerging countries, the first concern the pharmaceutical industry in Brazil and the second, the oil industry in Algeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the patentability of business methods (BMs) in the financial industry under Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act as of 2014. American patent law and a legal case involving the State Street Bank & Trust Co. The U.S. Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011 are addressed, along with the nation's Patent and Trademark Office and patent invalidity. The author argues that financial firms may be deterred from filing patent applications due to the invalidations of other BM patents.

Most patent scholars agree that the Patent and Trademark Office grants too many invalid patents and that these patents impose a significant tax upon industry and technological innovation. Although policymakers and scholars have proposed various ways to address this problem, including better ex ante review by patent examiners and various forms of ex post administrative review, the use of district courts to invalidate patents remains a core defense against bad patents. This Article analyzes a previously unidentified impediment to the use of district courts to invalidate patents. Nearly every patent lawsuit rises or falls on one of two defenses: invalidity or noninfringement. Invalidity and noninfringement are distinct legal and factual issues that scholars usually analyze separately. Yet as this Article explains, the two issues are closely related, creating a series of trade-offs and asymmetries that lead many patent defendants to focus on noninfringement instead of invalidity. The net effect of these trade-offs and asymmetries is that patent defendants often have an incentive to argue noninfringement instead of invalidity, leading courts to invalidate fewer patents than they should. This exacerbates the problem of invalid patents, making it harder for individuals and companies to create new products and services. The Article concludes by proposing three reforms to help restore the balance between invalidity and noninfringement. First, eliminating the elevated burden of proof for invalidity would remove one significant asymmetry that makes it harder to prevail on invalidity. Second, a bifurcation rule giving defendants the option to defer infringement issues until after validity has been decided would help litigants develop coherent trial narratives, allowing them to focus on validity issues early in a case, while delaying some settlements until after courts have ruled on invalidity challenges. And third, a new cause of action for an accounting, brought against industry competitors by a litigant that successfully invalidates a patent, would help eliminate the collective-action problem posed by invalidity's public-good nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a fundamental principle of patent law that no one may exclude with his patent what is within the scope of the prior art. This article focuses on the doctrine of patent invalidity, where the defendant offensively demonstrates that the asserted patent falls within the prior art and is therefore invalid. A comparative approach is utilized, looking to the doctrines prevalent in China and the United States, in exploring the range of possibilities in structuring the prior art invalidity defense. Since invalidity is doctrinally related to infringement, this article also explores invalidity with infringement as background and contrasts the ways in which the two countries have tied the doctrines together. Both China and the United States bifurcate the invalidity determination into novelty and obviousness/inventiveness inquiries, but these component inquiries exhibit significant differences in implementation. Both Chinese prior art invalidity inquiries demand more of the patentee. Unlike its U.S. counterpart, which regards an invention as lacking novelty only if the prior art reads on the invention, the Chinese novelty inquiry incorporates an equivalencetype analysis that expands the exact teachings of the prior art to encompass inventions that have the same structure, technical effects, and role. The Chinese inventiveness inquiry is also broader than the U.S. obviousness inquiry, and has a requirement, absent in U.S. patent law, that an invention offer technical improvement over the prior art to be patentable. In terms of the correspondence between the invalidity and infringement doctrines, U.S. law recognizes an exact linkage between novelty and literality but insists that different analytical frameworks be used for obviousness and equivalence. In contrast, the corresponding invalidity and infringement doctrines in China are not exactly linked with each other, but they do share component tests. The article shows how the structure taken by the Chinese can result in a more streamlined patent law and give rise to societal benefits, such as the promotion of domestic manufacturing, in a way that could not be realized under the U.S. approach of not recognizing linkages between obviousness and equivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of recent commercial interest are so-called deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) patents, and specifically gene patents, a subset of DNA patents that contain protein-encoding nucleic acid sequences. Heller and Eisenberg addressed the 'tragedy of the anticommons', whereby biomedical research is negatively impacted by an over proliferation of gene patents, although a review of research studies initiated over the last decade has not provided the evidence of biomedical research having been negatively impacted by single-gene patents. To remedy future potential patent-related issues to whole-genome sequencing research, it is recommended for the biotechnology industry's two major industry associations to institute an advisory policy among its memberships for each company to voluntarily recognize a patent liability exemption for firms engaged in pure (basic) whole-genome sequencing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Patent invalidation data is a good supplementary indicator in techmining for analyzing technology dynamics. • The current trends of technology can be analyzed through the comprehensive utilization of patent application and invalidation data. • Application level and invalidation level reflect technologies that still hold interest versus where interest has lapsed. Formulating good R&D strategy requires sound knowledge of the past and present R&D trends in various industry sectors. Therefore, this paper outlines a framework for mining industry level R&D trends from patents that were designed for enterprises. Unlike the current alternatives, the approach presented here considers both patent applications and invalidated patents, i.e., those patents that have expired, lapsed, or been revoked. The result is a richer and more comprehensive analysis that covers the full lifespan of a targeted technology from emergence to decline. The framework comprises of a LDA topic model that identifies the technologies and sub-technologies, and of each individual patent and invalidated patent. Then, two specifically designed measures chart the stages of the technologies' life. An application metric reflects annual levels of interest in an area, while an invalidation metric traces waning interest. The output is a series of trend maps that show the levels of interest and disinterest in different avenues of inquiry over time. Charted on different axes, these two metrics create two distinct trend lines that reflect the different changes over a technology's lifecycle. A case study that focused on China's 3-D printing technology illustrates the approach. The analysis results are highly consistent with the present technology trends across industries, which indicates that the method could serve as a useful reference tool for analyzing R&D trends and creating new R&D strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the effect of the patent system in India in attracting innovation and investment from generics companies. According to Novartis Institute of Tropical Diseases chair Paul Herrling, the rejection and revocation of drug patent applications which include as nexavar, sutent, and iressa, slows the progress of innovation in India. It also states that Section 3d if the patent law India invalidates weak patents to prevent monopolization of high-profile drugs.

The article focuses on the decisions by Federal district court judge in California for boost in technique of prenatal genetic testing which will increase and expand competition in the market. It reveals the patent invalidation of Sequenom Inc. by the district court which dipped their stocks by 23 percent. It mentions the testing of Down syndrome and abnormalities with the subsidization of fetal DNA tests and amniocentesis by genetic diseases program.

A review of the article "Proving Patent Damages is Getting Harder, But Establishing Patent Invalidity May Be Getting Easier: How i4i, LP v. Microsoft Corp. May Change the Landscape of Patent Litigation," by Audra Dial and Neal Betsy, which appeared in a 2011 issue of "The North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology," is presented.