Prerequisites: None

Exam Type: In Class

Roughly half of this course will examine and assess the legal rules in the United States and other countries governing patents.  The other half will explore policy issues pertaining to patents.  Those issues include: the nature and determinants of scientific innovation; the increasingly important roles played by “standard setting organizations” and the ways in which the legal system should regulate those organizations; the degree to which the patent system should differentiate among fields of technology; the appropriate treatment of reverse-payment settlement agreements; and the impact of patent law on the health crisis in the developing world.