Intellectual property rights offset the financial risks of funding research but limit information access. Can a balance between private interests and public desire for treatments be achieved? As the ...

The US Supreme Court ruling on gene patents is a welcome boost to efforts to increase the free exchange of scientific information, says Colin Macilwain. You have full ...

Patents represent a contract between an inventor and society. By granting time-limited market exclusivity, patents create the potential for inventors to generate high returns on successful innovations ...

You've just invented the greatest product known to mankind—or at least you think so. And you know that you must quickly protect this brilliant idea with a patent because someone will surely steal it ...

The use of microorganisms in human industry is ancient, but has increased markedly in recent years. The modern recognition of the role of microbial communities in the human body has intensified ...

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is fueling a surge in global patent filings for AI-related innovations, but differences in national patent laws and examination ...

Although issues related to patenting by faculty at academic medical centers have been the source of much controversy, there is little systematic evidence of the growth of these activities, their ...

“We might never get to [patenting] advanced machines if we do not patent machine learning processes.” The idea of patented inventions brings to mind machines fully realized – flying contraptions and ...

“Let’s end the fallacy that obviousness-type double patenting by an assignee is authorized by U.S. statutes, or that Congress prescribed its antidote. We are witnessing what happens when a substantive ...