Patent Law

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL

PROFESSORS FISHER & OKEDIJI

Fall 2020

Week 1:

• Lecture: Patent Fundamentals (Fisher) 
• September 8 (10:20-11:40): Strategic Options for Exploiting Patents
  • Case Study: Apple
• September 9 (10:20-11:40): Patent Drafting
  • Case Study: BeachBUB
  • WIPO Patent Drafting Manual, pages 33-42, 67-82

Week 2:

• Lecture:  Patents in a Global Context (Okediji)
• September 15 (10:20-11:40): CRISPR Patents and The Right of Priority at the EPO
  • Knut Egelie et al., “The Emerging Patent Landscape of CRISPR-Cas Gene Editing Technology,” Nature Biotechnology (1916)
  • CRISPR EPO Decision (2018), paragraphs 53-77
• September 16 (10:20-11:40): Dispute Settlement under the TRIPS Agreement
  • “India — Patent Protection for Pharmaceutical Products,” WT/DS50/AB/R (1997)
  • “India — Patent Protection for Pharmaceutical Products,” WT/DS50/10/Add.4 (1999)

Week 3:

• Lecture:  Patent Policy (Fisher & Lander) 
• September 22 (10:20-11:40): Motivations for Innovation
  • Miguel Helft & Shan Carter, “A Chief Executive’s Attention to Detail, Noted in 313 Patents,” New York Times, August 25, 2011.
  • Interview with William McCune, Concord Oral History Program (1996)
  • Elon Musk, “All Our Patents Belong to You” (2014)
  • John Golden, “Biotechnology, Technology Policy, and Patentability: Natural Products and Invention in the American System, 50 Emory L.J. 101 (2001), pages 144-163
• September 23 (10:20-11:40): The Implications of Behavioral Economics
  • Jolls, Sunstein, and Thaler, “A Behavioral Approach to Law and Economics,” pages 1471-1489
  • Dennis Crouch, “The Patent Lottery: Exploiting Behavioral Economics for the Common Good,” 16 George Mason Law Review 141 (2008)

Week 4:

• Lecture: Patentable Subject Matter (Fisher) 
• September 29 (10:20-11:40): Intellectual Property and Information Technology
  • Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank (SCOTUS 2014)
• September 30 (10:20-11:40): Alternative Ways of Limiting Patentable Subject Matter
  • Margo Bagley, “The New Invention Creation Activity Boundary in Patent Law” (2009)

Week 5:

• Lecture:  Utility and Disclosure (Fisher) 
• October 6 (10:20-11:40): Sufficiency
  • Regeneron Pharmaceuticals v. Kymab Ltd., 2020 UKSC 27
• October 7 (10:20-11:40): Disaggregation 
  • Mark Lemley & Dan Burk, Policy Levers in Patent Law (2003)

Week 6:

• Lecture: Newness (Fisher)
• October 13 (10:20-11:40): The Inventive Step
  • Case Study: Fingerprints
  • Case Study: Salty Frog (handout)
• October 14 (10:20-11:40): Pharmaceutical Products  
  • Fisher & Syed, A War Not Easily Won (draft 2020), chapter 2, pages 1-19
  • Dennis Choi et al., “Medicines for the Mind: Policy-Based “Pull” Incentives for Creating Breakthrough CNS Drugs,” Neuron 84 (2014)

Week 7:

• Lecture:  Patent Scope (Fisher)
• October 20 (10:20-11:40): Claim Interpretation in Comparative Perspective
  • Bagley, Okediji & Erstling, “Around the World with Claim Construction: The Improver Cases” (forthcoming 2021)
  • Protocol on the Interpretation of Article 69 EPC
• October 21 (10:20-11:40): Fairness in Pricing and Allocation
  • Suerie Moon et al., “Defining the Concept of Fair Pricing for Medicines,” British Medical Journal, January 2020
  • Amy Kapczynski, Paul Biddinger and Rochelle Walensky, “Remdesivir Could Be in Short Supply. Here’s a Fix,” New York Times, July 28, 2020

Week 8:

• Lecture:  Infringement (Fisher & Okediji) 
• October 27 (10:20-11:40): Designs
  • Egyptian Goddess (CAFC 2008)
  • Apple v. Samsung, 678 F.3d 1314 (2012): pages 1329-33
  • Star Athletica (SCOTUS 2017)
• October 28 (10:20-11:40): Parallel Importation and Differential Pricing
  • Impression Products v. Lexmark (SCOTUS 2017)

Week 9:

• Lecture:  Remedies (Fisher)
• November 3 (10:20-11:40): The Evolution of Patent Remedies
  • Jonathan Barnett, “Has the Academy Led Patent Law Astray?,” 32 Berkeley Technology Law Review 1313 (2017), pp. 1316-1320, 1361-1379
• November 4 (10:20-11:40): Standard-Setting Organizations and Standard Essential Patents 
  • Jorge Contreras, Fixing FRAND: A Pseudo-Pool Approach to Standards-Based Patent Licensing, 79 Antitrust Law Journal 1 (2013)

Week 10:

• Lecture: Patent Litigation (Lee)
• November 10 (10:20-11:40): Behavioral Economics and Litigation Strategy
  • Jane Goodman-Delahunty et al., “Insightful or Wishful: Lawyers’ Ability to Predict Case Outcomes,” Psychology, Public Policy and Law 16 (2010): 133
• November 11 (10:20-11:40): A Conversation with Judge Alan Lourie, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
  • 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

Week 11:

• Lecture: Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge (Okediji) 
• November 17 (10:20-11:40): Prof. Margo Bagley, The Design Law Treaty
  • Margo Bagley, “Designing Disclosure”
• November 18 (10:20-11:40): How Best to Handle Genetic Resources?
  • Munzer and Raustiala, “The Uneasy Case for Intellectual Property Rights in Traditional Knowledge,” Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal 27 (2009), pages 56-84
  • Case Study 34: Rooibos
    • R.Wynberg, “Making sense of access and benefit sharing in the rooibos industry,” South African Journal of Botany 110 (2017) 39–51
    • “Global lessons from South Africa’s rooibos compensation agreement,” Nature, 12 November 2019

Week 12:

• Lecture: The Global Health Crisis (Fisher) 
• November 23 (10:20-11:40): Potential Solutions, Part 1
  • Fisher & Syed, A War Not Easily Won (draft 2020), chapter 3
• November 24 (10:20-11:40): Potential Solutions, Part 2
  • Colleen Chien & Evan Hastings, “Spurring and Clearing the Path for Open COVID Innovation Through Contextual Patent Disclosure” (May 20, 2020)

Guidelines for Class Discussion

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: August 19, 2020