This significantly updated second edition of the Research Handbook on Patent Law provides comprehensive coverage of new research for patent protection in three major jurisdictions: the United States, Europe and Japan.

This major Handbook provides a comprehensive research source for patent protection in three major jurisdictions: the United States, Europe and Japan. Leading patent scholars and practitioners join together to give an innovative comparative analysis both of fundamental issues such as patentability, examination procedure and the scope of patent protection, and current issues such as patent protection for industry standards, computer software and business methods. Keeping in mind the important goal of world harmonization, the contributing authors challenge current systems and propose necessary changes for promoting innovation.Providing useful tips for practitioners to protect their intellectual assets in technologies effectively in the global market, this Handbook will be of great interest to legal scholars and students, as well as lawyers and patent attorneys.

This book applies a novel conflict-based approach to the notions of ‘idea’, ‘concept’, ‘invention’ and ‘immateriality’ in the legal regime of intellectual property rights by turning to the adversarial legal practices in which they occur. In doing so, it provides extensive ethnographies of the courts and law firms, and tackles classical questions in legal doctrine about the immaterial nature of intellectual property rights from a thoroughly new perspective.

The editor of Patent Law and Theory must be congratulated for assembling a concentration of sheer patent law erudition and scholarship. The title is a noteworthy compilation of 26 well-written, remarkably accessible and thought-provoking essays that goes to great lengths in charting the contours of contemporary thought over the the world s oldest regularly established property right . . . it manages to accomplish an ambitious endeavour of providing a comprehensive view of prevailing issues in the field of patent law and other related fields. . . the interested patent law reader will have much to gain from the fecund material found in the large majority of the title s essays. The world s corpus of patent law research is richer with the publication of this title. John A. Tessensohn, European Intellectual Property Review This major Handbook provides a comprehensive research source for patent protection in three major jurisdictions: the United States, Europe and Japan. Leading patent scholars and practitioners join together to give an innovative comparative analysis both of fundamental issues such as patentability, examination procedure and the scope of patent protection, and current issues such as patent protection for industry standards, computer software and business methods. Keeping in mind the important goal of world harmonization, the contributing authors challenge current systems and propose necessary changes for promoting innovation. Providing useful tips for practitioners to protect their intellectual assets in technologies effectively in the global market, this Handbook will be of great interest to legal scholars and students, as well as lawyers and patent attorneys.

Publisher's description: The intensification of globalization and the exponential growth of the creative economy have dramatically highlighted the importance of intellectual property (IP) to ensure freedom of competition and respect for honesty in trade. Additionally, the assets covered by IP are of crucial importance for social, technological, and economic development. This hugely valuable guide, written by specialists in the Secretariat of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and now in its updated and expanded second edition, pays particular attention to the subject of international cooperation in IP, including discussion of the principal multilateral treaties which deal with its protection, and to the role of IP in cultural, economic, and technological development.

Scientific and technological innovations are forcing the inadequacies of patent law into the spotlight. Robin Feldman explains why patents are causing so much trouble. She urges lawmakers to focus on crafting rules that anticipate future bargaining, not on the impossible task of assigning precise boundaries to rights when an invention is new.