Patent Law

Harvard Law School

Professors Fisher & Okediji

January 2020

January 6:

• Lecture: Patent Fundamentals (Fisher)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): Strategic Options for Exploiting Patents
• Reading:
  • Apple, Inc.: Strategic Management of Intellectual Property (2019)

January 7:

• Lecture: Patent Policy (Fisher & Lander)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): The Implications of Behavioral Economics
• Readings:
  • Jolls, Sunstein, and Thaler, A Behavioral Approach to Law and Economics, pp. 1471-1489
  • Dennis Crouch, The Patent Lottery: Exploiting Behavioral Economics for the Common Good, 16 George Mason Law Review 141 (2008)
  • Selected Slides

January 8:

• Lecture: The Administration of the International Patent System (Okediji)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): The Future of International Patent Agreements
• Readings:
  • John Duffy, Harmony and Diversity in Patent Law, 17 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 685 (2002)
  • Jerome Reichman and Rochelle Dreyfuss, Harmonization without Consensus, 57 Duke L.J. 85 (2007)

January 9:

• Lecture: Patentable Subject Matter (Fisher)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): Intellectual Property and Information Technology
• Reading:
  • Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank (SCOTUS 2014)

January 10:

• Lecture: Utility and Disclosure (Fisher)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): Disaggregation
• Reading:
  • Mark Lemley & Dan Burk, Policy Levers in Patent Law (2003)

January 13:

• Lecture: Newness (Fisher)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): Standard-Setting Organizations and Standard Essential Patents
• Readings:
  • Jorge Contreras, Fixing FRAND: A Pseudo-Pool Approach to Standards-Based Patent Licensing, 79 Antitrust Law Journal 1 (2013)

January 14:

• Lecture: Patent Scope (Fisher)
• Presentation (noon to 1:00pm): The Evolving Role of Chinese Courts
  • Judge Shen Hongyu, Supreme People’s Court of China
  • Morgan Courtroom, Austin Hall 308
• Discussion (1:15-1:45): The Future of the International Patent System

January 15:

• Lecture: Infringement (Fisher)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): Parallel Importation and Differential Pricing
• Reading:
  • Impression Products v. Lexmark (SCOTUS 2017)

January 16:

• Lecture: Remedies (Fisher)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): Property Rules versus Liability Rules in Patent Law
• Reading:
  • Kennedy & Fisher, The Canon of American Legal Thought, Introduction to Calabresi & Melamed, “Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability.”
  • Jonathan Barnett, “Has the Academy Led Patent Law Astray?,” 32 Berkeley Technology Law Review 1313 (2017), pp. 1361-1379

January 17:

• Lecture: Patent Litigation (Lee)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): Institutional Competence
• Reading:
  • Daily and Kieff, Benefits of Patent Jury Trials for Commercializing Innovation, 21 George Mason Law Review 865 (2014)
  • IIPI & USPTO, Comparative Study of Specialized Intellectual Property Courts (2012), pages 1-10

January 21:

• Lecture: Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge (Okediji)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): How Best to Handle Genetic Resources?
• Reading:
  • Fisher, The Puzzle of Traditional Knowledge, 67 Duke L.J. 1511 (2018)

January 22:

• Lecture: Patent Systems for Developing Countries (Okediji)
• Discussion (1:00-2:30pm): The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Global Health Crisis
• Reading:
  • Fisher & Syed, Infection, Introduction & chapters 2 and 6

Lecture Notes:

• All of the lecture notes for this course are available in two maps.
  • The first, which covers patent-law doctrine, is available at http://182.fab.mwp.accessdomain.com/patent-law/.
  • The second, which covers theories of intellectual property in general and patent law in particular, is available at http://182.fab.mwp.accessdomain.com/ip-theory/.

last revised: January 3, 2020