Colleen Chien Awarded the Young Scholars Medal Based on Her Patent Law Work

Santa Clara University law professor Colleen Chien has been honored by the American Law Institute for her work surrounding domestic and international patent law and policy issues. The Young Scholars Medal was awarded to Professor Chien because her “work in intellectual property law has already helped shape governmental policy around innovation,” said the chair of the Young Scholars Medal Selection Committee, Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar of the California Supreme Court.

The Young Scholars Medal is appointed every other year to one or two “outstanding early-career law professors whose work has the potential to influence improvements in the law.”

Professor Chien served as a Senior Advisor to the Chief Technology Officer of the United States on Intellectual Property and Innovation in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2013 to 2016; and she has testified twice before the House Judiciary Committee and numerous times before other federal agencies.

In 2010, Professor Chien coined the term “patent assertion entity” (or PAE) to describe those who use patents primarily to demand payments from potential infringers rather than to advance or commercialize novel technology. PAEs are sometimes referred to as “patent trolls” by critics. Professor Chien’s work on patent assertion business models has been the basis of studies and policy initiatives by the White House, the Federal Trade Commission, and Congress (in the America Invents Act). Policy recommendations that she and her co-authors have made have been adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court, in Congressional bills, at the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, and by 32 states.

Delve into Professor Chien’s Work in Patent Law

• Article: “From Arms Race to Marketplace: The Complex Patent Ecosystem and Its Implications for the Patent System” (Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 62, p. 297, December 2010)
  • Professor Chien’s first use of the term “patent assertion entity” appeared in this article.
  • TAP article summary: “From Arms Race to Marketplace: The Complex Patent Ecosystem and Its Implications for the Patent System”
• Op-ed: “Patents and the Public Interest” with Mark Lemley (The New York Times, December 13, 2011)
• Article: “The Best Way to Fight a Patent Demand May Be to Do Nothing” (The Wall Street Journal, November 23, 2015)
• Article: “Comparative Patent Quality” (Santa Clara Univ. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 0216, September 2016)
• Article: “Harmony and Disharmony in International Patent Law” (Working Paper, East-West Center Workshop on Mega-Regionalism - New Challenges for Trade and Innovation, March 2016)
• Article: “Beyond Eureka: What Creators Want (Freedom, Credit, and Audiences) and How Intellectual Property Can Better Give It to Them (by Supporting Sharing, Licensing, and Attribution)” (114 Michigan Law Review 1081, September 2016)