Patent Baristas

Just in case you didn’t know how I feel: patent trolls are a tax on innovation and are evil of the highest order.  ~ A VC In a post entitled “How Patent Trolls Are A Tax On Innovation,” venture capitalist Fred Wilson states that “after 22 years in the venture capital business and countless hours […]

Next came the Patent laws. These began in England in 1624; and, in this country, with the adoption of our constitution. Before then [these?], any man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for […]

As if a global economic meltdown were not enough for newly-President Obama, more than 130 non-pharma manufacturing companies signed a joint letter to the President detailing their concerns about the economic impact of adopting apportionment of damages legislation. Last month, the Manufacturing Alliance on Patent Policy (MAPP) released an economic analysis that showed how adopting […]

Today is National Inventors’ Day in the United States. It is celebrated on the birthday of Thomas Alva Edison and for good reason.  Edison had 1,093 U.S. Patents issued in his name covering not just the incandescent light bulb but the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and an early printing telegraph, among other things. The […]

The Licensing Executive Society (LES) 2009 Winter meeting will incorporate the professional aspects of licensing and how they exemplify licensing as a culture…a global culture.  Licensing opportunities exist on a global scale, and LES members are increasingly called up on to develop and manage Intellectual Property around the world. Licensing professionals globally deal with the […]

The 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act created a 180-day period of exclusivity to generic companies as an incentive to challenge patents on brand name drugs. However, there is a concern that some brand pharmaceutical companies have been circumventing the intent of the Act by using delay tactics such as authorized generics (where the brand product is repackaged […]

As mentioned earlier, not only has the Federal Trade Commission has filed a complaint in federal district court challenging agreements by Solvay Pharmaceuticals, which paid generic drug makers to delay launching generic versions of Solvay’s brand name drug AndroGel (known as “reverse payments“), but Senate Judiciary Committee members Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) […]

Conducting an IP audit is a way for a firm to assess the nature and value of its intellectual property assets. Such assessments may be critical and more commonplace in certain industries, such as IT and pharmaceuticals.  However, in the wake of legislative changes and the current economic downturn, the potential value in conducting an […]