These seven modules are designed to present the principal components of patent law and to explore the varying shapes those components take in the legal systems of the United States, Europe, China, and India. Each module is intended to occupy one week of a university-level course on patent law, although they may be taught in a more compressed format.
All variants of the PatentX course should begin with this curriculum. After completing it, instructors can and should construct custom courses by choosing among the materials included in the PatentX Options. Suggestions concerning how they might do so are available in PatentX Syllabi.
Module 101: An Overview of the Patent System
- Lecture: Patent Fundamentals (Fisher)
- Part A: Obtaining Patents (29 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Matt Bryan, The Patent Cooperation Treaty (24 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part B: Exploiting Patents (17 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part C: Enforcing and Challenging Patents (29 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part A: Obtaining Patents (29 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Discussion: Employee Inventions
- Europe: “Patent Assignments and The German Act On Employee Inventions” (2021)
- China: Jennifer Che & Sally Yu, “How Far Can an Employer Reach to Own Employee-made “Service Inventions”?” (China Patent Strategy 2020)
- India: Kartikeya Prakash, “The Dilemma of Employer-Employee Patent Ownership in India” (2021)
- Brazil: Industrial Property Law, Articles 88-93; Ownership of patents arising from employee’s inventions
Module 102: Eligibility
- Lecture: Patentable Subject Matter (Fisher)
- Part A: Expansion (48 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part B: Harmonization (25 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part C: Contraction (39 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Discussion: Software Patents
- Europe: European Patent Office, “Hardware and Software”
- China: “China’s new guidelines – Good news for software patents” (Deacons 2021)
- India: Barooah, “The Ping-Ponging Paradigm of Patenting Computer Programmes in India” (2020)
- South Africa: Jwambi and Kutumane v. Nedbank (ongoing)
- Kenya: Mwaura v. Kenya Industrial Property Institute (2018)
Module 103: Utility and Disclosure
- Lecture: Utility and Disclosure (Fisher)
- Part A: Utility (35 Minutes) (Vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part B: Disclosure (21 Minutes) (Vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Discussion: Sufficiency
- USA: Oulette, “Do Patents Disclose Useful Information” (2012), pages 550-565
- Europe: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals v. Kymab Ltd., 2020 UKSC 27
- China: Zhizhen v. Apple (Supreme People’s Court 2020)
- India: Aparna Kareer and Sneha Agarwal, “Too much information or not quite enough? Experimental data in Indian patent applications” (2021)
- Lessons from COVID-19: Peter Lee, “New and Heightened Public-Private Quid Pro Quos: Leveraging Public Support to Enhance Private Technical Disclosure” (2022)
Module 104: Newness
- Lecture: Newness (Fisher)
- Part A: Novelty
- A Comparative Overview (21 minutes) (Vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- The US System (49 minutes) (Vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part B: The Inventive Step (40 Minutes) (Vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part A: Novelty
- Discussion: The Inventive Step Requirement
Module 105: Claims
- Lecture: Patent Scope (Fisher)
- Part A: Claim Construction (51 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part B: Patent Duration (29 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Discussion: Claim Construction
- South Africa: Melody Musoni, “The Doctrine of Equivalents in Patent Claim Interpretation” (2017)
- Singapore & United Kingdom: Joel Sherard, Divergent Paths: The Doctrine on Equivalents in Singapore and the United Kingdom, 2019 Sing. COMP. L. REV. 80 (2019).
- Bagley, Okediji & Erstling, “Around the World with Claim Construction: The Improver Cases” (forthcoming 2021)
- Protocol on the Interpretation of Article 69 EPC
Module 106: Infringement
- Lecture: Infringement (Fisher)
- Part A: Forbidden Conduct (40 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part B: Defenses and Limitations (32 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Discussion: Exhaustion and Differential Pricing
- Policy: Fisher, “When Should We Permit Differential Pricing of Information?” (2007)
- USA: Impression Products v. Lexmark (SCOTUS 2017) [abridged]
- Europe: Katharine Stephens, “Brexit: Exhaustion of Intellectual Property rights” (2021)
- China: Hui Zhang, Richard Li, and Hanmei Wang, “Patent Exhaustion, Implied License and Contributory Infringement” (2017)
- India: Astha Sharma & Krishnaja Saseendran, “Parallel Importation under the Indian Patent Act” (2022)
- Nigeria: Okojie, “The Effects of Parallel Importation on the Nigerian Healthcare Industry” (2016)
Module 107: Remedies
- Lecture: Remedies (Fisher)
- Part A: Damages and Penalties (38 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Part B: Equitable Relief (42 minutes) (vimeo version) (mp4 version)
- Discussion: Patent Injunctions
- Europe: “Recent Developments Regarding Patent Injunctions In Germany” (Morrison Foerster, June 23, 2021)
- China: Luo Rui, “The power of administrative injunctions in patent infringement,” China Business Law Journal, November 2, 2021
- India: Natco Pharma Ltd vs Bristol Myers Squibb Holdings (Delhi High Court 2019)
- Argentina: Landmark decision issued on pharmaceutical patent enforcement (2010)