Patent Litigation at an All-time High
The latest issue of the New York Times carries an article which discusses the inherent value of patents. Other than touching on an age old debate, the article also draws attention to the rising trend of patent litigation – Domestic litigation costs alone, meanwhile, soared to $16 billion in 1999 from $8 billion in 1997. Things have probably become worse since then. For instance, patent litig... Read More
Electronic Patent Application Practice at the U.S.P.T.O.
The patent office is beginning a pilot program of sending electronic office actions and replacing the paper version. USPTO will let a few participants into the program starting from August 31. Not only is this convenient, this would be a step forward in rapidly clearing the bottlenecks in a situation where the patent office is being flooded with patent applications, riding on the wave of the boom ... Read More
Value of Patents in Productivity and Growth
How important are patents to the growth on an economy? A report, ‘Economic Effects of Intellectual Property-Intensive Manufacturing’, by economists Robert Shapiro and Nam Pham throws some light on this issue. According to these renowned economists, most of the value of America’s large businesses can be traced to patents and trademarks. An excerpt – The creation and adoption... Read More
Patents – indicators of R&D and innovation
In the backdrop of patent application surges and a boom in medical patents, a report titled ‘The Means to Compete’ by the Economist Intelligence Unit of The Economist, sheds some light on the relation between patents and innovation, an issue which is generating considerable debate at this time. ..the indicators used in the index—public and private expenditure on R&D, and... Read More
Physician Patents Lawsuit Deterrance System and Method
Hats off to Philippa Kennealy, M.D., of The Entrepreneural MD blog for pointing out a patented system and method of reducing medical malpractice claims developed by neurosurgeon Jeffrey Segal, M.D., founder of Medical Justice. Results of the patented technology are already in for Florida physicians according to the blog posting: The results speak for themselves – 10 to 15% of... Read More
