The United States patent system is designed to be a balance: in exchange for the inventor disclosing their invention to the public, pa-tentees are granted exclusive rights to that invention for a period of time. This ensures that patentees are adequately compensated for their innovation and society at large benefits from the patent’s disclosure. This balance is now broken. Over recent years, patentees — particu-larly non-practicing entities — have been permitted to seek and re-cover unreasonable damages that stretch far beyond the value of the technology they invented. This has had serious and negative conse-quences: excessive patent damages discourage innovation, increase risk and cost of production, and, in turn, increase the cost of products to consumers.
Originally published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology - Spring 2024.
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