Recent Articles

On Prometheus The Tempest Falls

March 22, 2012 03:33

The article, Physiological Steps Doctrine, published in 2009 in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal (and available free on SSRN), suggested that patents claiming aspects of human physiological processes are not upheld in court.  Here is the abstract of Physiological Steps Doctrine: In vivo...

Innovation Incentives Part 3: Combining Innovation Index and Product Cluster Models

January 12, 2012 17:21

Understanding the Consequences of Linking Market and Regulatory Incentives for Drug Development: Part 3Editor's note: This is the third installment of a three-part series.In Parts 1 and 2, we learned that it is both possible and valuable to import empirical scientific methods typically used in the...

Innovation Incentives Part 2: Patent Valuation

January 12, 2012 17:19

Understanding the Consequences of Linking Market and Regulatory Incentives for Drug Development: Part 2Editor's note: This is the second installment of a three-part series.In new work by our group, we have outlined a tandem of new methodological tools to identify and quantify new and follow-on...

Innovation Incentives Part 1: Regulated Therapeutic Product Lifecycle

December 05, 2011 02:41

Understanding the Consequences of Linking Market and Regulatory Incentives for Drug Development: Part 1This is a three-part series by guest blogger Ron A. Bouchard.Dr Ron A. Bouchard is an intellectual property lawyer and scholar, specializing in biomedical products. He began his career as a...

Secret Salmon Science

December 01, 2011 17:51

As one of the brothers in Lewis Carroll's The Two Brothers laments, Take my friends and my home - as an outcast I'll roam: Take the money I have in the bank: It is just what I wish, but deprive me of fish, And my life would indeed be blank.This ichthyophile brother would surely be alarmed at...

IPAT Baby Seven Billion

December 01, 2011 17:48

With the seven billionth living human being imminent, it is important to consider that numbers of people alone do not explain the environmental impact Homo sapiens have on the earth.  Developed by Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology John...

"We eat animals because they taste good"

September 26, 2011 21:17

. . . and other arguments in a spirited debate over the ethics of killing animals for food, fur, and/or leather.

Weldon Amendment Welded Onto The Patent Act

September 16, 2011 22:56

In 2004, the Consolidated Appropriations Act (Public Law Number 108-199, Section 199) was passed with the "Weldon Amendment" (named for its sponsor, former Republican Congressman Dr. Dave Weldon), a rider stipulating that "[n]one of the funds appropriated or otherwise made...

Polycentrism, Fragmentation, and the Role of Linkages in the Decade on Biodiversity

Andrew Long
August 14, 2011 04:37

The United Nations has declared 2011-2020 the Decade on Biodiversity and the Convention on Biological Diversity has adopted a Strategic Plan for this period. The plan suggests an emphasis on national and regional action with support from the international level. The approach fits generally within...

Myriad Genes To Patent

August 02, 2011 20:35

The United States Supreme Court must be despairing of how many patent appeals are coming its way.  After all, patent law is few people's cup of tea.  As one old, though obscure, joke puts it:Question:  What's the difference between a patent attorney and a tax...