American patent applications tailed off during the recession, but only after doubling in the decade before.
The outcome will have important ramifications for the American patent system and the future of inventiveness.
The American patent system is undergoing a major shift thanks to the America Invents Act (AIA), which was signed into law by President Obama last September.
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Some are more desperate than others: around 40% of AstraZeneca's total sales, for example, come from a single drug, Losec, whose American patent is scheduled to expire this year.
Hoechst, which gave the American patent in 1994 to a non-profit organisation, will now transfer the worldwide rights outside America to a one-product company, making it immune from boycotts.
Intense lobbying has brought to the cusp of enactment a bill that is very much to the liking of those who seek to dispense with the traditional American patent process.
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With a fixation on patent strategies, American tech giants are in danger of underpreparing for future key markets.
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American Locker apparently has no patent protection for its meal ticket -- the virtually indestructible plastic postal cluster boxes for housing developments and apartments.
If, indeed, certain prayers could be shown to shorten the course of illness, would not American religious institutions rush to patent and license them, just as many of our (non-profit) universities have done with research on the human genome?
Experts tell me the landscape is shifting in patent law, with the American courts less friendly to this kind of tactic while in Europe it has become slightly easier to patent computer-based innovations.
Because the critics believe the patent system hopelessly broken, 15 large American technology companies have spearheaded a completely self-serving initiative to rewrite the patent laws, all in an effort to insulate themselves from the competitive threat posed by the very job engines upon which our economy and our standard of living are so dependent.
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So the news that, last month, a group of American and Russian researchers received a patent for an apomictic maize plant has probably caused a few flutters in seed-company boardrooms.
Most of the investments are in production facilities, RNCOS notes, adding that Brazil is likely to evolve into a production hub, becoming tough competition for China and India, and providing a platform for multinationals to develop and sell branded and generic versions of their off-patent medicines into other Latin American markets, if not further afield.
Indian officials are now battling the patent of basmati rice by another American firm.
To encourage homegrown American innovation we should make it easier to patent a new idea or a new invention.
The stated purpose of this bill is to "streamline" the process whereby inventors - the engine behind American entrepreneurialism and economic vitality - can be given patent protection for their products.
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For years big technology companies that employed thousands of people, made and sold real products, and once in a while even exported actual American-made goods, had to accept being the fat targets of patent trolls.
Over the past three years its American Depositary Receipts more than doubled as an increasing number of drugs came off patent.
The products and services the Department provides touch the daily lives of Americans and American companies in many ways, including weather forecasts, the decennial census, and patent and trademark protection for inventors and businesses.
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On the other, it will level the playing field by ensuring that American entrepreneurs are handicapped by the same impediments to innovation that characterize non-U.S. patent systems.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Will the GOP Pull a 'Pelosi' on Patent Rights?
Our patent system and IP laws badly need reform, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the American healthcare system.
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