On 19 February 2013, officials from 24 European Member States signed the Unified Patent Court agreement establishing a Unified Patent Court (“UPC Agreement).[1] When you read this, Bulgaria will probably have signed as well. Poland and Spain did not sign but may still accede to the Agreement at a later date. Opening the signing ceremony, [...]

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. This is clear to me from the reaction I sometimes get when I tell computer scientists that I am a patent attorney specialising in computer patents. Frequently the response is, “But you can’t patent software!” That reaction is wrong, but quite understandable. The law really doesn’t help. [...]

“Exhaustion,” also known as the “first sale doctrine,” has been the subject of two Supreme Court cases this term:  Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons (copyright), which was decided on March 19, 2013, and Bowman v. Monsanto (patent), which was argued and submitted on February 19, 2013 and is awaiting decision.  A prior post discussed [...]

At a secondhand bookstore in Palo Alto, California (the location is relevant, as shall be seen below), I once paid US$5 for the first volume of Jean-Yves Tadié’s biography of Marcel Proust from the Éditions Gallimard “Collection Folio,” a book printed in France. Liking volume 1 so much, I feel an urge to buy volume [...]