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This chapter analyzes the doctrines used to prevent the exploitation of inventions outside protecting countries. It examines the doctrines from a comparative perspective by drawing from legislation and jurisprudence in the United States and Germany. The chapter covers the first mid-nineteenth-century cases that involved inventions embedded in foreign ships that entered ports of protecting countries. It then discusses the cases in which the transit of goods through territories of protecting countries provided an opportunity for inventors to block the utilization of their inventions in other countries; the chapter also reviews border measures developed to block the importation of infringing products. The next two sections of the chapter analyze offers to sell and the issue of preventing patent infringements through the supply of components of a patented invention for assembly abroad. Acts of indirect infringement performed abroad may be also infringing, as discussed later in the chapter. The standard used to localize an infringing act, if defined flexibly enough, may also place an act committed abroad within the scope of the patent law of a protecting country. Such possibilities are discussed towards the end of the chapter, which also addresses infringements committed on the Internet. The chapter finally summarizes the various doctrines and explores the limitations of their territorial reach.

This chapter analyzes the problems that patent holders face when they sue an entity that is outside the reach of the enforcement power of the court that adjudicates the patent infringement. The first section of the chapter presents the results of a quantitative analysis of a population of patent cases filed in the United States that was conducted to investigate the involvement of foreign entities in patent litigation in U.S. courts, and to demonstrate the magnitude of the phenomenon and the related potential for cross-border enforcement problems. Particular enforcement difficulties are discussed further in the chapter, which focus on injunctive and monetary relief, respectively. Finally, the chapter summarizes the enforcement difficulties identified in this chapter and offers observations on the impact of these difficulties on the territorial scope of patent laws.

This chapter begins by describing the problems posed by courts automatically granting injunctive relief in patent infringement cases. It discusses nonpracticing entities (often referred to as “trolls”). It summarizes the Supreme Court's decision in eBay v. MercExchange and examines the post-eBay landscape, synthesizing the cases and offering a framework that provides guidance to courts in determining the form of relief in patent infringement cases. The framework considers factors such as competition between the patentee and the infringer, the relationship between the patented technology and the defendant's product causing a willful infringement of the patent, and the effect of injunctive relief on the public.

This chapter discusses various issues relating to Israel's patent law. It first explains what is protected under patent law, subject matter eligibility, and substantial patentability requirements. It then considers how patent protection can be obtained, including procedural patentability requirements pertaining to the contents of the patent application, along with a range of issues that arise in the course of the registration process of a patent application and those relating to opposition and cancellation proceedings. It also examines what constitutes patent infringement and additional patent-relevant topics such as ownership and licenses, double patenting, inventorship, antitrust laws, and special rules concerning security and state-related inventions.

This chapter analyzes an important current controversy under TRIPS while simultaneously providing another opportunity to show the impact and influence of competing patent perspectives. In particular, it analyzes a controversial EU Regulation that permits customs officials to detain goods that infringe local patent laws—even though those goods are not intended for local consumption. Pursuant to the Regulation, the chapter gives an example of a situation where goods have been detained at a Netherlands airport en route to another country. The detentions are permissible under the EU Regulation because in-transit goods are considered to infringe patent rights in the Netherlands. These detentions have resulted in delays of goods that violate no patent rights in either the country of origin or destination. The issue poses difficult interpretive TRIPS questions, yet discussion to date has predominantly suggested the EU law is either clearly consistent or inconsistent with TRIPS. The chapter aims to explain why the TRIPS issue is a nuanced one that is far less clear than most suggest. In addition, it describes how the competing patent perspectives have promoted skewed interpretations of the law and facts.

This chapter offers a few proposals for making the process of innovating more free and competitive. Among these are that the patenting process must reject more patent applications for lack of technological concreteness or obvious subject matter; patentees must have increased obligations to provide notice; injunctive relief should presumptively be denied for unpracticed patents; dominant firm patent acquisitions should be limited to nonexclusive licenses; infringement plaintiffs must show the correct type of injury; and copyrights should have short but renewable terms.

The mathematician Kurt Gödel showed in his Incompleteness Theorem in the early 1930s that there are some statements in mathematics that are true but cannot be proven. Whether statements are true is important in the twenty-first century, an age of ‘fake news’ and alternative facts. Patent documents are true and accurate as they are examined and can be challenged for accuracy. This chapter outlines the patenting procedure. It also highlights the role of patents as a source of information alongside other sources. Accurate and true information is important for people with interests in engineering, physical sciences and life sciences. Patent infringement and patent trolls (non-practicing entities) are described. The following technical areas are grouped together to describe how they developed over time and how they may develop in the twenty-first century: communications, computing including quantum computing, life sciences including gene editing (CRISPR), transport and unexpected consequences of technological change.

This chapter critiques three particular patents cases in the US and EU that were filed in the 1990s by Indian NGOs and the Indian government. The three patents in question were related to neem, turmeric, and basmati. All three cases caused outrage in India because of the perception that the West was ‘stealing’ traditional knowledge from India. This chapter explains the rhetoric and misinformation surrounding all three cases and explores how the media and the government dealt with these issues at a time when awareness about patent law in India was low. These three cases were followed by the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL). This chapter explores and critiques the rationale for the TKDL and its efficacy in achieving its stated goals.

This chapter examines the market competition faced by Frank Sprague's Sprague Electric Company (SEC). It explains that after the company had staged the operational advantages of Sprague's multiple-unit (MU) control system at the South Side Elevated Railroad Company project, both Edison General Electric (GE) and Westinghouse formulated complex responses to the challenge posed by the MU control system. The chapter discusses GE's filing of a patent infringement suit against SEC and highlights GE's eventual acquisition of Sprague's third company.

One of the first high-profile patent cases after 2005 was the patent application filed by Novartis for the protection of Glivec, a sensational new drug which dramatically increased the survival rate of patients with a rare form of cancer called chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). A patent application filed by Novartis for a certain salt form that was marketed as Glivec was rejected by the Indian patent office on the grounds that it was barred by Section 3(d). Not only did the rejection sparked a series of appeals by Novartis but it also led to Novartis challenging the constitutionality and TRIPS compatibility of Section 3(d) before the Madras High Court. Novartis lost both the cases. This chapter starts with the story of how Glivec was invented and explains the various legal issues raised by Novartis in its long battle to patent Glivec.