This Guide aims to assist users in searching for technology information using patent documents, a rich source of technical, legal and business information presented in a generally standardized format and often not reproduced anywhere else. Though the Guide focuses on patent information, many of the search techniques described here can also be applied in searching other non-patent sources of technology information.

The U.S. patent system is in an accelerating race with human ingenuity and investments in innovation. In many respects the system has responded with admirable flexibility, but the strain of continual technological change and the greater importance ascribed to patents in a knowledge economy are exposing weaknesses including questionable patent quality, rising transaction costs, impediments to the dissemination of information through patents, and international inconsistencies. A panel including a mix of legal expertise, economists, technologists, and university and corporate officials recommends significant changes in the way the patent system operates. A Patent System for the 21st Century urges creation of a mechanism for post-grant challenges to newly issued patents, reinvigoration of the non-obviousness standard to quality for a patent, strengthening of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, simplified and less costly litigation, harmonization of the U.S., European, and Japanese examination process, and protection of some research from patent infringement liability.

Patent protection under the European Patent Convention (EPC) is not available for all issues. The intuitive colloquial meaning of the terms "invention" and "technical" often differs from the legal interpretation given in case-law decisions. Many of the current patent disputes among the players in the smartphone and portable-device market are based on issues relating to graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which allow the user to interact and interface with these devices. Furthermore, practitioners often have concerns regarding the filing of trivial patent applications in this and related computer-implemented fields. "Human and Machine Rights" seeks to place these issues in the light of the case law of the European Patent Office. Assisted by a Socratic dialogue between two forgotten computers, Master and Flip-flop, part I of "Human and Machine Rights" leads the reader through a systematised reading of EPO case law, looking for the conceptual framework underlying the boundaries of the exclusions from patentability for technicality reasons (in particular those relating to GUIs and gestural systems). The intention is to explicitly set out a praxis-oriented criterion, thus allowing practitioners to anticipate whether or not patent protection is available for a specific subject-matter, and to determine where the risks of trivial patent applications lie. Leaving behind the traditional classification of decisions according to the areas of activity relating to the respective inventions, "Human and Machine Rights" develops a new conceptual categorisation of the issues under discussion in the decisions, departing from the problems solved or the aims achieved by the inventions. A Human-Machine-Interface (HMI) model is used for this purpose. This categorisation automatically leads to a differentiation between the main trend of the decisions and the possible dissonant voices, thus contributing to increased harmonisation in the way inventions are dealt with. An annex presents

Patent Law in Global Perspective addresses critical and timely questions in patent law from a truly global perspective, with contributions from leading patent law scholars from various countries. Offering fresh insights and new approaches to evaluating key institutional, economic, doctrinal, and practical issues, these chapters reflect critical analyses and review developments in national patent laws, efforts to reform the global patent system, and reconfigure geopolitical interests. Professors Ruth L. Okediji and Margo A. Bagley bring together the first collection to explore patent law issues through the lens of economic development theory, international relations, theoretical foundations for the patent law system in the global context, and more. Topics include: the role of patent law in economic development; the efficacy of patent rights in facilitating innovation; patents and access to medicines; comparative patentability standards (including subject matter eligibility for biotechnology and software inventions); limitations and exceptions to patent scope and protection (including exhaustion, compulsory licensing, and research exceptions); patents on plants and other living organisms; and the impact of emerging economies on global patent system governance. The contributors provide a wealth of original insight and thought-provoking discussion that will be of great interest and benefit to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners alike.

Over the last twenty years, a quiet revolution has taken place in patent law. Before 1982, courts rigorously enforced the nonobviousness requirement, limiting patents to those innovations representing a substantial technical advance. At the same time, once an innovation satisfied this rigorous standard, courts accorded the patent a broad scope by applying a vibrant doctrine of equivalents. Since 1982, the Federal Circuit, with the acquiescence and sometimes the consent of the Court, has rewritten both doctrines, sharply limiting their reach. Through their doctrinal changes, we have moved over the last twenty years from patents that were rarely valid, but if valid, broadly enforced, to patents that are routinely valid, but narrowly enforced. In order to evaluate whether this switch is likely "to Promote the Progress of . . . the useful Arts," this article explores the economics of patents and identifies the uniformity of patent protection as a key to understanding the structure of patent law. Both patent and copyright protect a wide range of innovative products. Some of these innovative products require very little protection to ensure their development and disclosure, while others require considerably more. If we had perfect information, then in the absence of agency and transaction costs, an optimal patent system would individually tailor protection to each innovative product, providing protection just sufficient to ensure each desirable innovation's development and disclosure. Historically, however, the practice of both patent and copyright has been to provide more-or-less uniform protection to all information products that satisfy a given set of prerequisites. Although this uniformity is a potentially rational response to the presence of information, agency, and transaction costs, the fact of uniformity creates a trade-off, in expanding patent protection, between: (i) the social value of the additional information products broader protection ensures; and (ii) the reduced social value associated with the preexisting information products protected more broadly than necessary to secure their discovery and disclosure. Measured against the costs of uniformity, the switch to routinely valid, but narrowly enforced patents has two principal consequences. First, effectively eliminating the nonobviousness requirement will extend patent protection to a wider range of innovative products that would have been forthcoming with no or less protection. Given the trade-off uniformity entails, protecting a wider range of preexisting innovations increases the cost of any given expansion in protection and thereby drags down the optimal level of uniform protection. Eliminating the nonobviousness requirement thus limits the patent system's ability to encourage desirable, but more costly innovation. Second, at the same time, the switch removes from the patent system two of the principal doctrines by which courts could attempt to vary the effective level of protection provided to particular innovations. By reducing the ability of courts to tailor protection to the individually optimal, the switch to routinely valid, but narrowly enforced patents pushes us towards a more uniform, "one size fits all" system of patent protection. As with the first consequence, reducing the legal system's ability to tailor protection to the individually optimal level will limit the patent system's ability to encourage desirable, but more costly innovation. As a result, the switch to routinely valid, but narrowly enforced patents will limit the range of desirable innovations that the patent system can ensure.

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. But like the infamous patent on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, much of the cited evidence about the patent system is pure anecdote--making realistic policy formation difficult. Is the patent system fundamentally broken, or can it be fixed with a few modest reforms? Moving beyond rhetoric, Patent Failure provides the first authoritative and comprehensive look at the economic performance of patents in forty years. James Bessen and Michael Meurer ask whether patents work well as property rights, and, if not, what institutional and legal reforms are necessary to make the patent system more effective. Patent Failure presents a wide range of empirical evidence from history, law, and economics. The book's findings are stark and conclusive. While patents do provide incentives to invest in research, development, and commercialization, for most businesses today, patents fail to provide predictable property rights. Instead, they produce costly disputes and excessive litigation that outweigh positive incentives. Only in some sectors, such as the pharmaceutical industry, do patents act as advertised, with their benefits outweighing the related costs. By showing how the patent system has fallen short in providing predictable legal boundaries, Patent Failure serves as a call for change in institutions and laws. There are no simple solutions, but Bessen and Meurer's reform proposals need to be heard. The health and competitiveness of the nation's economy depend on it.

Setting up a new business may be really tough. Let's assume you want to produce and market DVD-players. You can not ignore the fact that the DVD technology is protected with patents. More than 850 patents owned by some 10 patent holders around the world, such as Philips, Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi, etc. In order to be on 'the safe side', you will have to negotiate individual licenses with all those 10 patent holders in order to use these technologies. It goes without saying that doing so costs a lot of time and money. Or, imagine, you want to produce rice, which has added value, more in particular rice which is enriched with vitamin A, and hence, has a yellowish colour. You will soon figure out that this rice technology is covered with some 70 patents, held by a bunch of agricultural firms, such as Monsanto, Novartis and Bayer. In order to be on 'the safe side', you will have to negotiate individual licenses with all those patent holders in order to bring your rice to the market. These examples clearly illustrate a twofold trend in patent law. First: proliferation and explosion of patents. More and more patents are being applied for - and - granted. Second: expansion of patentable subject matter. More and more matter qualifies for patent protection: not only mechanical, inanimate items can enjoy patent protection, but now also living material, such as plants and animals. Thoughtful observers conclude that patent law is "in crisis", "in turmoil". Patents no longer act as instrument for fostering innovation by generating incentives. Rather, patents are tools hindering the coming about of a knowledge based economy and the 'open society'. The present paper offers a more fundamental analysis of these trends and reveals some limits of patent law. The present paper claims that these limits relate to the regulatory function and the symbolic function of current patent law.

US Intellectual Property Law and Policy provides a selection of well-written essays critically examining the direction of US IP law. Simon Teng, Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice . . . an interesting, informative, and enjoyable book. It may be of special interest to Australian students, scholars and practitioners seeking to undertake comparative analysis between Australian and US IP law, particularly in view of the recent Free Trade Agreement. Louise Buckingham, Copyright Reporter The challenging and insightful essays in US Intellectual Property Law and Policy, a compilation by six of the best, if not the best, professors of intellectual property law in the United States . John A. Tessensohn, European Intellectual Property Review This book identifies and addresses the key principles and policies with regard to the protection of intellectual property in the United States. A select group of highly-regarded contributors illustrate several themes which are recurrent in the many debates concerning US law and policy on intellectual property. The need for a constant expansion of protectable subject matter is critically analyzed, especially in relation to trade mark and patent laws. The chapters within the book discuss a question of critical jurisprudential importance: have the legislature and the judiciary taken sufficient consideration of the different economic and constitutional rationales of intellectual property protection when extending the scope of intellectual property protection? A tentative agenda as to the future direction for both Congress and the courts to adopt, in light of the new technological changes which have affected all areas of intellectual property protection equally, is also suggested. Policymakers will find this book of great interest as will academics and students of intellectual property law and international law.