Patent Baristas

Today’s book review is of the Annual Review of Intellectual Property Law Developments: 2006-2008 put out by the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Intellectual Property Law. The debut volume covers over 300 recent legal developments including Supreme Court cases, e.g., eBay, MedImmune, KSR, Quanta, and Microsoft v. AT&T; Federal Circuit en banc decisions, e.g., In re Seagate and Egyptian Goddess; and Federal Circuit decisions on business method patents, e.g., In re Bilski and In re Comiskey.

This is the first in a series of annual reviews of significant IP developments, which the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law plans to put out. The rebel in me enjoyed the fact that this annual review covers three years worth of decisions! Presumably that’s not part of a long-term plan.

This type of volume is meant to satisfy two purposes:  (1) to provide a good quick overview to the practitioner of important recent developments; and (2) to provide an easy-to-use way to incorporate the most recent decisions into legal research. This book succeeds on both counts. The book provides good, succinct summaries of recent decisions (and even some legislative and rule-making matters), providing enough information to allow the reader to place the decision in context without suffering information overload.

The result is that it is quite easy to go from entry to entry and absorb the key points; the reader can go to the case itself if more detail is needed. The book is also very nicely indexed by subject, in outline form, to allow the researcher an easy-to-use way to get to the relevant cases. This is not a source for deep case analysis – but that is not its purpose.

My only suggestion is that the editors could consider a rating system (one to four stars?) for each case, so that the reader could see at a glance what the potential impact of a given case might be on the body of IP law.

My bottom line is that this volume is a valuable addition to the IP library. I hope that the ABA will continue this effort in the coming years.

The Annual Review of Intellectual Property Law Developments: 2006-2008 is available in hardback from the American Bar Association and in soft cover by pre-order on Amazon.

Today’s review is by Guest Barista Steven J. Goldstein, Vice Chair for Intellectual Property at Frost Brown Todd LLC and Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati.