TY - CHAP
T1 - Navigating the Patent Landscapes for Nanotechnology
T2 - English Gardens or Tangled Grounds?
AU - Sylvester, Douglas J.
AU - Bowman, Diana M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011.
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - The patent landscape, like a garden, can tell you much about its designers and users: Their motivations, biases, and general interests. While both patent landscapes and gardens may appear to the casual observer as refined and ordered, an in-depth exploration of the terrain is likely to reveal unforeseen challenges including, for example, alien species, thickets, and trolls. As this chapter illustrates, patent landscapes are dynamic and have been forced to continually evolve in response to technological innovation. While emerging technologies such as biotechnology and information communication technology have challenged the traditional patent landscape, the overarching framework and design have largely remained intact. But will this always be the case? The aim of this chapter is to highlight how nanotechnology is challenging the existing structures and underlying foundation of the patent landscape and the implications thereof for the technology, industry, and public more generally. The chapter concludes by asking the question whether the current patent landscape will be able to withstand the ubiquitous nature of the technology, or whether nanotechnology will be a catalyst for governments and policy makers for overhauling the current landscape design.
AB - The patent landscape, like a garden, can tell you much about its designers and users: Their motivations, biases, and general interests. While both patent landscapes and gardens may appear to the casual observer as refined and ordered, an in-depth exploration of the terrain is likely to reveal unforeseen challenges including, for example, alien species, thickets, and trolls. As this chapter illustrates, patent landscapes are dynamic and have been forced to continually evolve in response to technological innovation. While emerging technologies such as biotechnology and information communication technology have challenged the traditional patent landscape, the overarching framework and design have largely remained intact. But will this always be the case? The aim of this chapter is to highlight how nanotechnology is challenging the existing structures and underlying foundation of the patent landscape and the implications thereof for the technology, industry, and public more generally. The chapter concludes by asking the question whether the current patent landscape will be able to withstand the ubiquitous nature of the technology, or whether nanotechnology will be a catalyst for governments and policy makers for overhauling the current landscape design.
KW - Intellectual property
KW - Patent pools
KW - Patent thickets
KW - TRIPS
KW - Technology innovation
KW - Trolls
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79959810659&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=79959810659&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-1-61779-052-2_23
DO - 10.1007/978-1-61779-052-2_23
M3 - Chapter
C2 - 21424461
AN - SCOPUS:79959810659
T3 - Methods in Molecular Biology
SP - 359
EP - 378
BT - Methods in Molecular Biology
PB - Humana Press Inc.
ER -