Academic

Madison on Patents & Knowledge

By Lawrence Solum

Michael J. Madison (University of Pittsburgh - School of Law) has posted Beyond Invention: Patent as Knowledge Law (Lewis & Clark Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Bilski v. Kappos, concerning the legal standard for determining patentable subject matter under the American Patent Act, is used as a starting point for a brief review of historical, philosophical, and cultural influences on subject matter questions in both patent and copyright law. The article suggests that patent and copyright law jurisprudence was constructed initially by the Court with explicit attention to the relationship between these forms of intellectual property law and the roles of knowledge in society. Over time, explicit attention to that relationship has largely disappeared from the Court?s opinions. The article suggests that renewing consideration of the idea of a law of knowledge would bring some clarity not only to patentable subject matter questions in particular but also to much of intellectual property law in general.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on December 30, 2010 (boomark / email).