The FTC testimony of Prof Stephen B. Maebius has been said to cast some light on the subject of why injunctive relief is vital to pharma and biotech, but not to software and electronic equipment. Very readable, with lots of business history and examples. Essentially, he explains that defensive patents came to be widespread in EE and software, and a few other fields (cars), but not in pharma and biotech. What I don't fully understand on reading this is why. Is it just that pharma and biotech patents require much more research (expensive) to obtain so their use has been restricted to offensive? (This has been part of the argument against allowing software patents at all; countered by the argument that development costs in tech fields are likely to be changeable over time and patent law needs to be tech neutral--one can't very well have biotech lose patent protection should development costs drop). Or is the spread of defensive patenting in certain sectors partly a cultural/historic thing--once one firm starts doing it, the others must follow suit? I welcome emails on this question.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 12:32 PM | Big Tent, Biotech, Patents, Patents

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