Intellectual Property

The Origins of American Design Protection

Design patents protect the visual appearance of a product. Innovation in early American manufacturing lead to expanded design piracy. Lawmakers created the design patent system in 1842. The proposal was modelled on British copyright protection for design.

Trading and Enforcing Patent Rights

We study how the market for innovation affects enforcement of patent rights.

The FTC, IP, and SSOs: Government Hold-Up Replacing Private Coordination

The authors argue the FTC’s patent regulation proposal is an overreach that will disrupt and impede the IP marketplace.

The Direct Costs from NPE Disputes

The authors empirically study the direct costs resulting from NPE litigation and its negative impact on innovation.

Market Power Screens Willingness-to-Pay

This paper proposes a new method for rewarding innovation by firms.

Patent Law’s Audience

The authors develop a basic matrix to analyze the problems inherent in patent law’s communication with its audience.

Functionality in Design Protection Systems

The authors analyze functionality doctrine in the design patent context and offer suggestions for improving it.

Patent Holdup, the ITC, and the Public Interest

The authors recount the impact of the ITC in providing an avenue around the eBay decision and propose possible remedies.

Reforming Software Patents

The author looks back to the agrarian and railroad patent crises to draw parallels to software patent reform efficacy.

Communities of Innovation

The author analyzes the Market Correction Hypothesis using an ethnographic study and finds reality differs from theory.