This paper surveys the major changes in patent policy and practice that have occured in the
last two decades in the US, and reviews the existing analyses by the economists that attempt …

Prior art patent citations have become a popular measure of patent quality and knowledge
flow between firms. Interpreting these measurements is complicated, in some cases …

In recent years, business leaders, policymakers, and inventors have complained to the
media and to Congress that today's patent system stifles innovation instead of fostering it …

The patent system is designed with a paradigm invention in mind-a new device or machine
covered by a single patent. Historically, this paradigm was a fairly accurate portrayal of the …

Economists often assume that a patent gives its owner a well-defined legal right to exclude
others from practicing the invention described in the patent. In practice, however, the rights …

135 USC?? 100-376 (2000). 2See, eg, id.? 103 (b)(2000)(special nonobviousness provision
for biotechnology).'Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 US 303, 309 (1980)(citing S. Rep. No. 82 …

How much time and money should the Patent and Trademark Office spend deciding whether
to issue a patent? To judge by recent criticism of the office from academics, industry leaders …

The United States patent system has become sand rather than lubricant in the wheels of
American progress. Such is the premise behind this provocative and timely book by two of …

Any elementary school student can recite a number of canonical American invention stories.
Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb from his famous home laboratory in Menlo Park, New …

Patent trolls-patent owners whose primary business is collecting money from others that
allegedly infringe their patents-are on everyone's mind. Complaints that trolls are perverting …