Eyewitness to Jesus: amazing new manuscript evidence about the origin of the Gospels

Reviewed Book: Thiede, Carsten Peter. Eyewitness to Jesus: amazing new manuscript evidence about the origin of the Gospels. New York: Doubleday, 1996

Claim Re-Construction: The Doctrine of Equivalents in the Post-Markman Era

In the post-Markman era, the Federal Circuit has focused attention on the public notice function of patent claims in equivalents cases, and it has come to emphasize precision and accuracy in claim drafting. This Article argues that recent judicial emphasis on the public notice function of patent claims is an inappropriate innovation policy. The demand for highly refined patent claims increases patent acquisition expenditures that are unlikely to increase social welfare, cause patent rights to be distributed unevenly, and are inconsistent with the structural features of the patent system. This Article presents two mechanisms to accommodate the doctrine of equivalents in the post-Markman era. One is the reinvigoration of the reissue proceeding. The other is allowing judicial amendment of patent claims during infringement litigation proceedings, much like the longstanding British practice. This shift would allow courts to pursue the policy goals of Markman for literal and equivalent infringement alike

The Responsibility of the RuleMaker: Comparative Approaches to Patent Administration Reform

Patent administrators across the globe currently face the most challenging operating environment they have ever known. Soaring application rates, lean fiscal policies and an increasingly ambitious range of patentable subject matter are among the difficulties faced by the world\u27s leading patent offices. These trends have resulted in persistent concerns over the quality of issued patents. Responding to recent writings questioning the value of maintaining high levels of patent quality, Professor Jay Thomas asserts both that patent quality matters, and that increasing the responsibilities of patent applicants provides a fair and efficient mechanism for improving patent office work product. This Article then assesses recent reform agendas pursued by the European Patent Office, Japanese Patent Office and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that have elevated applicant obligations. After distilling broader policy trends from these distinct programs, Professor Thomas presents several proposals for patent administration reform

Collusion and Collective Action in the Patent System: A Proposal for Patent Bounties

Persistent commentary contends that the Patent Office is issuing patents that appropriate public domain concepts at an alarming frequency. Complaints of low patent quality enjoy growing resonance with regard to business methods, computer software, and other inventions for which patents were not traditionally sought. In this article, Professor Jay Thomas explains how the judiciary\u27s lenient view of patentable subject matter and utility standards, along with miserly congressional funding policies, have rendered the Patent Office an increasingly porous agency. Professor Thomas next reviews existing proposals for improving patent quality, including the conventional wisdom that adoption of an opposition system will contribute meaningfully to the solution of our patent quality problem. Exploring the political economy of patent challenges, Professor Thomas reasons that oppositions do little to solve collective action problems, the possibility of collusion between the prior art holder and patentee, and the existence of the first inventor defense. Professor Thomas instead proposes that the Patent Office recruit members of the public to act as private patent examiners. By awarding prior art informants with a bounty assessed against applicants, the Patent Office can restore order to the patent system and reduce its social costs

Liberty and Property in the Patent Law

Patents have seldom troubled civil libertarians. A specialized form of property, patents seemed pertinent to the technologies of traditional industry but little else. Patent instruments offered their readers mere technical documentation; patent cases presented no more than the mapping of a text onto an instantiated artifact; patent policy was principally oriented toward economic optimization of the length and scope of protection. Unbound from technology, contemporary patent law now seems a more robust discipline. Modern patent instruments appropriate a diverse array of techniques that span the entire range of human endeavor. Patent claims, cut loose from physical moorings, have grown more abstract and oriented toward human behavior. We have yet to realize fully the consequences of postindustrial patenting, but the potential impact of the patent law upon personal liberties is becoming more apparent and more worthy of concern. Although the principles of the patent canon demonstrate sufficient flexibility to regulate uses of such inventions as software, business methods, and genetic fragments, they persist in bearing little regard for civil rights. The private rule making, made possible through the patent law, holds the potential to impinge upon individual liberties in ways not previously considered possible