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Difference between revisions of "Aerotel ruling by UK Court of Appeal on 27 October 2006"

m ('''Aerotel v. Telco''' is a UK ruling made in 2006 by Lord Justice Jacob.)
m (Aerotel v. Telco moved to Aerotel v. Telco (2006, UK): naming scheme)
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Revision as of 11:17, 18 August 2009

Aerotel v. Telco is a UK ruling made in 2006 by Lord Justice Jacob.

Quotes

Point 20 (page 10): "The patent system is there to provide a research and investment incentive but it has a price. That price (what economists call “transaction costs”) is paid in a host of ways: the costs of patenting, the impediment to competition, the compliance cost of ensuring non-infringement, the cost of uncertainty, litigation costs and so on. There is, so far as we know, no really hard empirical data showing that the liberalisation of what is patentable in the USA has resulted in a greater rate of innovation or investment in the excluded categories. Innovation in computer programs, for instance, proceeded at an immense speed for years before anyone thought of granting patents for them as such. There is evidence, in the shape of the mass of US litigation about the excluded categories, that they have produced much uncertainty. If the encouragement of patenting and of patent litigation as industries in themselves were a purpose of the patent system, then the case for construing the categories narrowly (and indeed for removing them) is made out. But not otherwise."

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