IP Injury and the Institutions of Patent Law

• Author: Paul R. Gugliuzza
• Position: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Florida Levin College of Law
• Pages: 747-771

747

IP Injury and the Institutions of

Patent Law

Paul R. Gugliuzza

CREATION WITHOUT RESTRAINT: PROMOTING LIBERTY AND RIVALRY IN

INNOVATION. By Christina Bohannan & Herbert Hovenkamp. Oxford

and New York: Oxford University Press. 2012. Pp. xviii, 416. $45.

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 748

I. IP INJURY ................................................................................................ 750

A. THE PROPOSAL ................................................................................ 751

B. A DOCTRINALLY REALISTIC SOLUTION TO THE CRISIS IN IP LAW ........ 753

C. IP INJURY AND HARD CASES .............................................................. 756

II. IP INJURY AND INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE .......................................... 759

A. INTEREST GROUPS AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE PATENT SYSTEM ....... 760

B. IP INJURY IN THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT? ................................................. 763

C. THE AUDIENCE FOR CREATION WITHOUT RESTRAINT ..................... 765

CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 768

APPENDIX ............................................................................................... 770

 Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Florida Levin College of Law. For helpful

comments, I thank Michael Carrier, Joe Miller, Bill Page, Rachel Rebouché, Danny Sokol, and

the editors of the Iowa Law Review.

748 IOWA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 98:747

INTRODUCTION

In March 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to the

biotechnology industry, issuing a decision that will render many methods of

medical diagnosis unpatentable. In Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus

Laboratories, Inc., the Court invalidated patents on a method to determine

the appropriate dosage level of the drug thiopurine, which is used to treat

autoimmune diseases.1 This method, in the Court’s view, did nothing more

than apply an unpatentable law of nature, the correlation between

thiopurine levels in the bloodstream and the drug’s efficacy, in a manner

that was well-understood by doctors.2 The Court reasoned that allowing

exclusive rights over this method would “inhibit future innovation premised

upon [it],” such as investigations into the underlying diseases or improved

methods of treating them.3 To support its analysis, the Court twice cited

Creation Without Restraint,4 the recent, pathbreaking book by Christina

Bohannan5 and Herbert Hovenkamp.6

As the Supreme Court’s recently heightened interest in patent law

illustrates,7 there is widespread belief that intellectual property (“IP”) law is

in crisis. Common critiques of patent law are that the Patent and Trademark

Office (“PTO”) grants too many patents, that these patents have poorly

defined boundaries, and that patent litigation is too expensive and

unpredictable. Patent law’s problems have inspired dozens of books,8

exponentially more scholarly articles, and even an episode of NPR’s This

American Life.9 Congress has also recognized that patent reform is needed,

passing the America Invents Act,10 which is intended to “improve patent

1. Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1294 (2012).

2. Id. at 1297–98.

3. Id. at 1301.

4. Id. at 1302, 1305.

5. Christina Bohannan, Professor and Lauridsen Family Fellow in Law, University of Iowa

College of Law.

6. Herbert Hovenkamp, Ben and Dorothy Willie Chair, University of Iowa College of

Law.

7. See Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss, What the Federal Circuit Can Learn from the Supreme Court—

and Vice Versa, 59 AM. U. L. REV. 787, 792–93 (2010).

8. In addition to Creation Without Restraint, notable examples include: JAMES BESSEN &

MICHAEL J. MEURER, PATENT FAILURE: HOW JUDGES, BUREAUCRATS, AND LAWYERS PUT

INNOVATORS AT RISK (2008); DAN L. BURK & MARK A. LEMLEY, THE PATENT CRISIS AND HOW THE

COURTS CAN SOLVE IT (2009); MICHAEL A. CARRIER, INNOVATION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY:

HARNESSING THE POWER OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND ANTITRUST LAW (2009); ADAM B.

JAFFE & JOSH LERNER, INNOVATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS: HOW OUR BROKEN PATENT SYSTEM IS

ENDANGERING INNOVATION AND PROGRESS, AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT (2004).

9. When Patents Attack, NPR (July 26, 2011, 3:00 PM), http://www.npr.org/blogs/

money/2011/07/26/138576167/when-patents-attack.

10. Leahy–Smith America Invents Act, Pub. L. No. 112-29, 125 Stat. 284 (2011) (to be

codified in scattered sections of 28 and 35 U.S.C.).