Current Patent System Research Articles

Awarded with Economic Growth, from Weak to Strong Patent Legislation: Legal Study with Regard to China

This paper provides a critical legal study on evaluation of patent system in China from the year1980, which is known as the beginning of Chinese modern intellectual property law including patent law till 2016 that China achieved third place in Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) internationally for the highest patent applications according to World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Moreover, researcher will go through few important push factors for Chinese patent legislator who developed stronger Patent law to attract more national and international inventors for investing in Chinese market without hesitation of their patent rights being infringed due to weak legislation. In other words, how China realized that being in the era of globalization for improving economic growth, it should consider at least minimum international standards in its own patent legislation. Hence, the method used in this paper will be purely a doctrine method, because the researcher will be conducting the critical legal study on mentioned aspects, which involves collecting of data from primary and secondary sources. The process involved in this research is a collative process. However, still there is room for improvement in current Chinese patent system, which will be discussed in this paper. All in all, the researcher concluded that concept of globalization is undeniable in national as well as the international market in order to have a reasonable economic growth for the same reason China had considered having stronger patent legislation in order to save its position in the market and also to increase its own rate of economic growth. On the other hand, the paper concludes by putting forward suggestions for modifying Chinese patent system.

Brexit – What are the potential consequences for pharma patents and SPCs?

Brexit raises a number of difficult questions with regard to intellectual property rights in a post-Brexit world, particularly for UK based pharma companies. Whilst the position with regard to the current European patent system is unchanged, the fate of the unitary patent and the unified patent court remains uncertain. Of more immediate concern is the possible future position with respect to supplementary patent certificates. Should the UK fail to reach an agreement with the EU with respect to marketing authorisations for new pharmaceuticals then there is a real possibility that UK based pharma companies may find themselves in a position where they are unable to obtain EU-wide SPC protection.

A ASPIRAÇÃO DO SISTEMA DE PATENTES E O CASO DOS PRODUTOS TERAPÊUTICOS PARA DOENÇAS NEGLIGENCIADAS

A presente pesquisa se propõe a investigar se o cumprimento dos deveres impostos pelo sistema jurídico de patentes está em consonância com sua aspiração de incentivar a inovação no que concerne à pesquisa e ao desenvolvimento (P&D) de produtos destinados ao combate das doenças negligenciadas. Essa investigação configura-se como um diagnóstico empírico preliminar sustentado por inferências descritivas, formuladas a partir da coleta indireta de dados e guiadas pelas regras de inferência de Epstein e King. O substrato teórico utilizado é composto pela interação entre a moralidade da aspiração e a moralidade do dever, de acordo com a perspectiva teórica de Bankowski. Desse modo, em primeiro lugar, é possível inferir que o cumprimento dos deveres impostos pelo atual modelo de exclusividade tem se mostrado insuficiente para incentivar a inovação no caso específico das doenças negligenciadas. Em segundo lugar, verifica-se que, mesmo dentro do grupo dessas enfermidades, algumas delas podem ser consideradas mais negligenciadas do que outras, podendo demandar tratamentos diferenciados, no que diz respeito à operacionalização do sistema jurídico de patentes e à elaboração de políticas públicas. Finalmente, constata-se que a pesquisa e o desenvolvimento de produtos destinados ao combate das doenças em geral são motivados por interesses diversos das demandas da saúde pública.

La biología sintética en el panorama de las patentes biotecnológicas

Los pretendidos efectos positivos del actual sistema de patentes en la investigación biotecnológica han sido ampliamente cuestionados. En el marco de esta crítica, se discute aquí uno de los cimientos del modelo. La tesis de la indispensabilidad de las patentes es examinada a través de tres de sus presupuestos: el acceso a la información, el acceso y uso de las invenciones y el incremento de la creatividad y de la investigación que se suponen garantizados a través de las biopatentes. Aplicado a la biología sintética, este enfoque revela que, junto a nuevas técnicas y prometedores productos potenciales, esta disciplina brinda igualmente muestra de tal problemática. Sin embargo, ofrece también una nueva visión de la propiedad industrial y de sus efectos en la investigación, basada en una concepción diferente del commons y de sus relaciones con la propiedad privada sobre los bienes inmateriales en la economía del conocimiento.

The influence of patents on science

This paper is a critique of the current US patent system along general consequentialist lines. I present a pro tanto case against it because of its effects on scientific inquiry. The patent system is often thought to be justified (or necessary) because it provides incentives to innovate. I challenge this concern. Economists and legal scholars have spent a good portion of time analyzing particular aspects of the patent system. I here synthesize their work, showing how it amounts to a pro tanto moral case against patents. This is the case even though patents are said to incentivize innovation, its disclosure, and its transfer to interested parties. I explore all of these possibilities, finding them to only weakly (at best) support the institution of patent rights. Juxtaposing this weak case for patents along with various problems that patents cause for science, we find a pro tanto case against our current patent system. To my knowledge, no one has tried to synthesize the various concerns I raise, with particular attention to not only the patent’s system purported ability to incentivize innovation, but also to disclose and transfer technology.

3D Printing and Healthcare: Will Laws, Lawyers, and Companies Stand in the Way of Patient Care?

Today, our society is on a precipice of significant advancement in healthcare because 3D printing will usher in the next generation of medicine. The next generation will be driven by customization, which will allow doctors to replace limbs and individualize drugs. However, the next generation will be without large pharmaceutical companies and their justifications for strong intellectual property rights. However, the current patent system (which is underpinned by a social tradeoff made from property incentives) is not flexible enough to cope with 3D printing’s rapid development. Very soon, the social tradeoff will no longer benefit society, so it must be re-evaluated to facilitate the coming of the next generation in medicine.

A patent quality analysis and classification system using self-organizing maps with support vector machine

A plethora of patents are approved by the patent officers each year and current patent systems face a solemn quandary of evaluating these patents’ qualities. Traditional researchers and analyzers have fixated on developing sundry patent quality indicators only, but these indicators do not have further prognosticating power on incipient patent applications or publications. Therefore, the data mining (DM) approaches are employed in this article to identify and to classify the new patent's quality in time. An automatic patent quality analysis and classification system, namely SOM-KPCA-SVM, is developed according to patent quality indicators and characteristics, respectively. First, the self-organizing map (SOM) approach is used to cluster patents published before into different quality groups according to the patent quality indicators and defines group quality type instead of via experts. The kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) approach is used to transform nonlinear feature space in order to improve classification performance. Finally, the support vector machine (SVM) is used to build up the patent quality classification model. The proposed SOM-KPCA-SVM is applied to classify patent quality automatically in patent data of the thin film solar cell. Experimental results show that our proposed system can capture the analysis effectively compared with traditional manpower approach.

The re-inventor's dilemma: a tragedy of the public domain

Unlike the tragedy of the commons that consists in overuse of public resources, the tragedy of the public domain or, more precisely, of intellectual properties publicly available (namely expired patents), consists in their underuse. This tragedy, we argue, is due to the phenomenon we term the re-inventor's dilemma, the unpleasant choice between avoiding further activity on new products based on expired patents and risking significant competition that is likely to follow if and when the product is successfully marketed. Accordingly, non-marketed expired patents present to re-inventors a similar predicament to those which inventors face under the inventor's dilemma, with no remedy in current patent systems. This analysis leads to the hypothesis that intellectual property law is in need of an overhaul.

Ebola and the need for restructuring pharmaceutical incentives.

Ebola and the need for restructuring pharmaceutical incentives.

The diminishing signaling value of patents between early rounds of venture capital financing

A long stream of research has documented the positive effects that patents bring about to emerging firms in high technology industries. The general consensus is that patents contribute to firm growth because they confer monopolistic market rights, offer protection from competitors, increase the negotiating position of patent holders and other benefits. What has received relatively less attention in the literature is whether patents act as a signal that attracts investors such as venture capital firms. The handful of studies that have addressed that question has not analyzed whether the signaling function of patents decreases after the initial attraction of venture capital, as information asymmetries between investors and target firms reduce. In this study we hypothesize that patent activity has a signaling value that diminishes once information asymmetries between investors and funded firms lessen. To study our proposition we draw upon a longitudinal dataset of more than 580 U.S.-based biotechnology firms to empirically demonstrate that biotechnology firms that have submitted patent applications substantially increase the level of funding they receive for their first round of financing. In line with a reduction of information asymmetries once the initial investment has materialized, patent applications and granted patents have no effect on the growth of venture capital funds raised during the second round of financing. We conclude the study with a discussion of avenues for new research, implications for policy makers that consider the usefulness of the current patent system and with insights that can be employed by managers of firms in knowledge intensive areas such as biotechnology.

Gene Patents: A Broken Incentives System

The proliferation of patents on human genes has raised important ethical questions centered on the conflict of patient rights and intellectual property rights. With the Supreme Court's June 2013 decision that altered the patent eligibility of genetic material, it is important to reexamine the ethical implications of gene patents as a concept. Such patents suggest an ownership of genetic material that may hinder access to healthcare and inhibit medical progress. The application of the current patent system to genetic material thus violates patients' rights without fulfilling the system's goal of promoting innovation, suggesting a need for a revised incentives infrastructure.

Property Rights and Property Rules for Commercializing Inventions

Several recent commentators have criticized trends in the patent system by suggesting that the goals of the system can be better achieved through a variety of approaches that avoid or mitigate the monopoly-type impact of property rights. Suggested alternatives include the use of cash rewards, buy-outs, and liability rules, as distinct from property rules. This paper uses the important contributions made by these commentators to reveal shortcomings in any view of the patent system that focuses only on incentives to engage in inventive activity. The paper offers a new view of the patent system that embraces property rights and property rules as core elements of the patent system. According to this view, property treatment is essential for the subsequent commercialization activity that is necessary to get embodiments of nascent inventions into the hands of consumers and for efficiently identifying which inventions are worth the costs of government intervention in the first instance. The recently suggested alternatives fail to address these important goals of the patent system and would actually frustrate them. In addition, the current system already addresses many of the concerns raised by such commentary. The paper reveals how property rights and commercialization motivated the creation of our current patent system and explains many controversial trends in the system, including those that sparked the recent critical commentary, as well as those in other intellectual property regimes such as trademarks.

IRI 2038: Envisioning the Future of R&D

The IRI2038 project will explore plausible yet provocative scenarios for the future of management. Using backcasting techniques, the project will consider how IRI and its members can prepare for each scenario. The discovery phase, comprising an internal futures audit and a weak signals environmental scan, was completed in 2012. Complete information about the project can be found at www.iriweb.org/IRI2038.What will look like in twenty-five years? How will your job get done? The future is happening now, developing from tiny tremors in the environment. Today's weak signals- emerging trends and indicators of future trends in business, technology, and culture-can help you see where the world is going. As part of its 75 th Anniversary, the Industrial Research Institute has commissioned a foresight initiative to explore what the next quarter century will bring for innovation and R&D, as well as for IRI itself. What trends and developments may impact the art and science of research and technology development? This is the question we'll be exploring over the coming year.The first step in the IRI2038 journey is a discovery phase, designed to map out the forces likely to shape our future through a futures audit and weak signals scan. For the futures audit, the IRI2038 team interviewed 38 leaders from around the world, asking about their views of past, current, and future drivers of change in management. The weak signals scan scoured the world of information-written, electronic, video, and other sources-for early indicators of possible future trends. 1Taken together, the results of these two exercises reveal an intriguing picture of the future of R&D. Our interviewees identified a diverse set of forces likely to shape the organization of 2038, from intellectual property challenges to the emergence of freelance R&D to an increasing embrace of open innovation. At the same time, the weak signals scan suggested a range of less certain future trends, such as human augmentation, that may perturb those from the audit and take the future of in unexpected directions.Some trends identified in the futures audit were seen as evolving from the past, through the present, and into the future-open innovation is one vivid example. organizations began learning to work with universities and external labs well over 25 years ago. The twenty-first century has seen the emergence of open innovation companies that crowdsource solutions to corporate challenges. In the future this practice will expand beyond R&D, leveraging insight from consumers and customers to redefine all aspects of the supply chain.Complementing these trends are one-time events that will have long-term impacts. The Bayh-Dole act, passed in the United States in 1980, gave patent ownership rights to any organization utilizing federal funds for research. The act changed forever how corporate interacts with U.S. universities. When we asked what trends our participants were watching today, we heard about remote workers and the shifting center of gravity of toward the Far East.Looking forward, here are a few of the future trends for which there was broad consensus among leaders interviewed:* Freelance R&D: We are all contractors! By 2038, it will be rare to have an extended career with one company. Scientists, engineers, and project managers will be individual contractors working from home. The most important person in the company will be the project recruiter, who bids to get the best talent possible for the project budget.* Intellectual property challenges. Everyone agrees the current global patent system is overloaded. Some believe that the process must improve and more resources are required to support it, but they believe the basic principle of patent protection as the cornerstone of intellectual property will be the same in 2038. Others think the classic patent will be of little value, if it even exists by 2038, as the increasing pace of innovation, open sourcing, and some countries' overuse of their power to force companies to license their patents may make traditional patents irrelevant. …

Patent Laws and Innovation: Evidence from Economic History

What is the optimal system of intellectual property rights to encourage innovation? Empirical evidence from economic history can help to inform important policy questions that have been difficult to answer with modern data: 1) Does the existence of strong patent laws encourage innovation? And 2) May patent laws influence the direction – as opposed to the rate – of technical change? Economic history can also help to shed light on the effectiveness of policy tools that are intended to address problems with the current patent system: 3) How do patent pools, as a mechanism to mitigate litigation risks, influence the creation of new technologies? 4) Will compulsory licensing, as a mechanism to improve access to essential innovations in developing countries, discourage innovation in the developing countries? This essay summarizes results of existing research and highlights promising areas for future research.

Modeling Patent Quality: A System for Large-scale Patentability Analysis using Text Mining

Current patent systems face a serious problem of declining quality of patents as the larger number of applications make it difficult for patent officers to spend enough time for evaluating each application. For building a better patent system, it is necessary to define a public consensus on the quality of patent applications in a quantitative way. In this article, we tackle the problem of assessing the quality of patent applications based on machine learning and text mining techniques. For each patent application, our tool automatically computes a score called patentability, which indicates how likely it is that the application will be approved by the patent office. We employ a new statistical prediction model to estimate examination results (approval or rejection) based on a large data set including 0.3 million patent applications. The model computes the patentability score based on a set of feature variables including the text contents of the specification documents. Experimental results showed that our model outperforms a conventional method which uses only the structural properties of the documents. Since users can access the estimated result through a Web-browser-based GUI, this system allows both patent examiners and applicants to quickly detect weak applications and to find their specific flaws.

A new prize system for drug innovation

We propose a new prize (reward) system for drug innovation which pays a price based on the value of health benefits accrued over time. Willingness to pay for a unit of health benefit is determined based on the cost-effectiveness ratio of palliative/nursing care. We solve the problem of limited information on the value of health benefits by mathematically relating reward size to the uncertainty of information including information on potential drug overuse. The proposed prize system offers optimal incentives to invest in research and development because it rewards the innovator for the social value of drug innovation. The proposal is envisaged as a non-voluntary alternative to the current patent system and reduces excessive marketing of innovators and generic drug producers.

Patent Law in the Antitrust Scope: Between Social Advancement and Competition Impingement

In the past couple of decades, many scholars have debated the worthiness of the limited monopoly that patent law provides. The widespread attitude has always been, since the progress of the technological era, that in order to stimulate inventors and possessors of knowledge to embody their knowledge by innovative products, and produce ameliorations into society, they should be given strong proprietary rights over their innovative information and ideas.With the rise of the economic analysis of law, dissident opinions have been starting to emerge, evoking the social damage absorbed due to the current patent system monopoly character in form of a deadweight loss imposed over economic surplus.This article discusses the deficiencies and benefits that exist in the current legal system as they relate to limited monopoly of a patent. Next, it reviews some significant points of view by scholars who approached the aforesaid dispute via an economic analysis. Finally, this article suggests guidelines for a compromise efficient incentive for inventors, which will balance competition rationales.

Recombinant Drug Development, Regulation, and Commercialization

The Indian biopharmaceutical sector comprises nearly 40 companies that manufacture and/or market 14 recombinant drugs that account for nearly 50 products. Among these, 22 companies have manufacturing facilities in India. The aim of the present study was to analyze the patenting trends, commercialization, and regulatory system for biopharmaceuticals in India. Representatives from 19 such biopharmaceutical companies were interviewed on aspects related to regulatory compliance, manufacturing, commercialization, and innovation in order to understand the challenges faced by them in the current regulatory and patent system. The study revealed that 94% of the companies have filed patents and 52% are developing new biologic entities in areas such as diabetes mellitus, cancer, and congestive heart diseases. Forty-two percent of the companies consider delays in regulatory approval to be a major constraint for biopharmaceutical industry development. Almost all are of the opinion that uniform guidelines across countries would help to prevent delays in the commercialization of products. A high proportion of representatives of the biopharmaceutical industry in India identified that elaboration of regulatory guidelines, defined submission requirements, and drug approval timelines are vital to the growth of the biopharmaceutical industry.

Intellectual Property, Dissemination of Innovation and Sustainable Development

AbstractWe live in a knowledge economy. The production and dissemination of knowledge will be central to solving the problems of climate change and environmental sustainability, reducing global poverty and addressing other global problems. This article asks: do intellectual property rights – with their increasingly global reach –further or hinder the production and dissemination of knowledge? Experience with genetically modified organisms shows that a model markedly different from the current one is more likely to bring wider social benefits, both in the short and the long run. Indeed, the current system may impede both innovation and dissemination. There are reforms in the intellectual property regime, and more broadly in the way we finance, organize and incentivize innovation, that would increase the pace of innovation and its utilization. The spread of the current dysfunctional system owes much to the evolution of intellectual property rights in the US – and the influence of particular special interests there.Policy Implications A well‐functioning patent system requires careful attention to a number of details, including: (1) what can be patented; (2) the breadth of a patent; and (3) the standards of novelty that determine whether an innovation is eligible for a patent. Corporate interests have resulted in a patent system which answers each of these questions in a way that may impede not only the utilization of knowledge, but even innovation. Among the details that matter is the process by which patents are granted. The current system grants too many ‘bad’ patents. Opening the process of examination of patent candidates to all parties that reveal themselves as having private information relevant to a thorough examination (in a process called opposition) should reduce the number of ‘bad’ patents. The patent system is only one part of a society’s innovation system, through which the production of knowledge is financed, incentivized and organized. Too much attention has been focused on IPR (intellectual property rights), and too little on alternatives, e.g. open source systems, publicly financed innovation and prizes. Providing more scope for compulsory licenses – making it easier for countries to issue them – would reduce some of the inefficiencies associated with the current patent system.

The 'one size fits all' problem of patent systems

This article describes, in general, the economic implications of patent systems with respect to undifferentiated lifetimes of patents provided by current national patent laws. Current patent systems are flawed in respect to social welfare considerations since they provide an insufficiently differentiated degree of legal protection to different types of inventions. This misallocation of rights leads to social welfare losses due to underproduction of inventions involving high research and development costs on the one hand and to underutilization of inventions of minor technical merit on the other. Classification of inventions into several groups, depending on their characteristics, and providing different levels of patent protection on this basis, would lead to considerable welfare gains.