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Are Patent Cases Too Complex?

By Benjamin Hershkowitz and Michael Schiffer
June 28, 2006

It is unquestioned that technology is becoming more complex, building on what has come before. In 1965, Gordon Moore prophesized that the number of transistors on a chip would double about every 2 years. To put this in context, in 40 years, the number of transistors on a chip has risen from mere thousands to nearly 1 billion. See www.intel.com/technology/silicon/mooreslaw/. A corollary to Moore's law is that the price will necessarily decrease each generation, putting more computing power into consumers' hands at ever-lower costs. The technologies that allow more information to be packed into an ever-smaller space at lower costs are increasingly complex.

Similarly, patent law is generally acknowledged as one of the more complex bodies of law. In light of the complexity of modern day inventions, it is not surprising that defining the scope of protection afforded to these inventions is complicated. As put by one patent practitioner: 'Patents are complex legal documents, and the rules for interpreting these documents are constantly evolving.' See David J.F. Gross et. al, You Must Be Mistaken: Federal Circuit 'Corrections' of District Court Claim Constructions (2002-03), in Patent Litigation 2003, at 47 (PLI, Handbook Series No. G-766, 2003); see also John R. Allison & Mark A. Lemley, The Growing Complexity of the United States Patent System, 82 B.U. L. Rev. 77 (2002) (comparing patents from the 1970s with patents from 1990s and finding increasing complexity). The Manual of Complex Litigation acknowledges this trend with special sections dedicated to the handling of patent cases.

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