In this paper we describe experiments conducted for CLEFIP 2011 Prior Art Retrieval track. We examined the impact of 1) using key phrase extraction to generate queries from input patent and 2) the use of citation network and (International Patent Classification) IPC class vector in ranking patents. Variations of a popular key phrase extraction technique were explored for extracting and scoring ...

The pharmaceutical industry relies on innovation. However, many innovative firms are cutting their research and development investments and seeing their new product pipelines dry up, due in part to a lack of sufficient patent protection. This Note identifies two major factors that have caused this inadequacy in patent protection. First, pharmaceutical patents are challenged early and often by g...

In this Article, we propose a way to improve the workings of the patent system. Unlike most extant reform proposals that focus on the USPTO and the Federal Circuit and the procedures they employ, our proposal is conceptual in nature. We introduce two new intellectual property forms—“quasipatents” and “semi-patents.” Both forms are designed to mitigate the social costs of traditional patents by ...

This paper develops a simple duopoly model in which investments in R&D and patents are inputs in the production of firm rents. Patents are necessary to appropriate the returns to the firm’s own R&D, but patents also create potential claims against the rents of rival firms. Analysis of the model reveals a general necessary condition for the existence of a positive correlation between the firm’s ...

Patents are often portrayed as the necessary reward to compensate pharmaceutical firms for the huge costs and risks associated with Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-mandated clinical trials of new drugs. But the relationship between the patent system and other regulation of drugs is more complex than this simple formulation suggests. Drug regulation operates in tandem with patents to make pro...

Whereas a vast amount of new information on bioinformatics is made available to the public through patents, only a small set of patents are cited in academic papers. A detailed analysis of registered bioinformatics patents, using the existing patent search system, can provide valuable information links between science and technology. However, it is extremely difficult to select keywords to capt...

This paper analyses the asymmetric volatility in Japanese electronics and electrical equipment (hereafter, electronics) patents in the USA from 1975 to 1997. The number of patents has been increasing steadily over time and the electronics industry has a 30% share of total Japanese patents in the USA. Thus, such patents reflect a strategic development by Japanese companies for the US market. The...

While the main theoretical benefit of patent protection is increased innovation, some assert a swamped U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted an inefficiently large number of patents with negligible innovation value. I test this argument’s plausibility and determine the characteristics of patents without innovation by analyzing 980 litigated patents subject to anticipation or obviousness ...

U.S. legal changes have made it easier to obtain patents on inventions that use software. Software patents have grown rapidly and now comprise 15 percent of all patents. They are acquired primarily by large manufacturing firms in industries known for strategic patenting; only 5 percent belong to software publishers. The very large increase in software patent propensity over time is not adequate...

We report the results of the first comparative study of the determinants and effects of patent oppositions in Europe and of reexaminations on corresponding patents issued in the United States. The analysis is based on a data set consisting of matched European Patent Office (EPO) and U.S. patents. Our analysis focuses on two broad technology categories—biotechnology and pharmaceuticals and compu...