New FTC report on patent …. more transparency is needed

On March 7th 2011, the FTC released a very important report on patent with a strong focus on how more transparency can be created around patents and patent remedies.

The report insists strongly on the role of patents to stimulate innovation which require that anybody is able to understand easily the scope of the protection offered by a patent and then several suggestions are made to increase such predictability.

In addition, the report is considering the necessary balance for compensation to patentees, overcompensation or undercompensation having a strong effect on innovation.

Several suggestions are made:

“capping reasonable royalty damages at the amount a willing licensee would pay, which may be determined by the value of the invention over alternative technologies;

increasing the role of district courts in excluding unreliable expert testimony on damages from trial;

incorporating concerns into the injunction analysis about the leverage that an injunction may give a patentee to obtain royalties exceeding the economic value of an invention.”

In a nushell, a very importance piece for the debate about the patent system and its necessary evolution.

the report is available there: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2011/03/110307patentreport.pdf

 

Advertisement