Weighing Risks and Rewards in Health Care Financing
The United States spends $1.4 trillion on health care annually, translating to the potential for $300 billion in health care financing. Those are numbers that deserve more than a passing glance. However, according to a recent survey of U.S. health care leasing published by R. S. Carmichael & Co. and the Equipment Leasing Association ("ELA"), <i>Healthcare Equipment Leasing, 2003 U.S. Market Dynamics and Outlook</i>, only 10 companies controlled 85% of this sector.
Equipment Leasing as a Current Financing Strategy for Middle Market Companies
Equipment leasing remains a viable tool for middle market companies in today's environment. The Equipment Leasing Association of America (the "ELA") estimates that of the $668 billion spent by U.S. business on productive assets in 2003, $208 billion, or 31.1%, was acquired through leasing, and for 2004 the ELA projects that leasing activity will grow to $218 billion, or 30.7 cents of every dollar American businesses will invest in equipment.
Patent Pools: A Review of the Department of Justice Guidelines
A patent pool is composed of two or more patent holders who combine their rights to different patents for the purpose of collectively licensing the patents. Patent pools are typically formed when actual or potential competitors in a technology area group patents to complementary aspects of the technology area. Agreements among actual or potential competitors immediately raise the specter of anticompetitive behavior (such as output restrictions, price fixing, and market division) and the antitrust issues corresponding to such behavior.
Patent Licensing in Connection with a Standard: Avoiding Antitrust Violations
Antitrust laws are designed to protect consumers' rights. The Department of Justice ("DOJ"), the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") and private parties may take legal action against businesses that gain an unfair business advantage through the use of a monopolistic market power or other agreements that unfairly restrain trade. In other words, antitrust laws deter unfair advantages gained by businesses due to monopolistic market power.
Standards Setting Organizations and Patents: Patent Policies Matter
For several reasons, the continuing advance of technology involves the use of standards setting organizations ("SSOs"). First, SSOs ensure that there are accepted technical standards in an industry, for example, to ensure interoperability of hardware and/or software products. Second, SSOs encourage the participation and collaboration of multiple members of the industry, thereby obtaining valuable contributions from parties who are normally highly competitive and otherwise might not work together. In addition, such standards provide a benefit to the end users (namely, the consumers of the goods or services governed by the standard) by allowing for economies of scale due to large-scale deployment of the technology covered by the standard, and thereby also helping to lower costs for new technologies.
Open Source and Patents
A patent gives its owner the right to exclude others from making, using, and selling the claimed invention. Thus, patent rights give a patentee great control over who uses his invention. In contrast, the basic idea behind distributing software under an Open Source license is that anyone should be able to view and use the source code of the computer program and modify it for his own use. (The source code is the human readable version of the software.) A business decision to distribute software under an Open Source license affects how the author of the software may be able to use his patent rights, but does not affect whether he can or should apply for patent protection.
The Misuse of Patent Law Experts: An Embarrassment to Our Profession
What role should patent law experts play in modern litigation? Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence allows experts to testify about their opinions when such testimony will assist the trier of fact. The testimony must be "based upon sufficient facts or data," must be "the product of reliable principles and methods," and the witness must have "applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case." Fed. R. Evid. 702.
Strengthening the Patent System
America's patent system is at a crossroads. There are many critics of the patent system; some have become increasingly vocal. Some claim the patent system is outdated. Others label it as a "threat to innovation." As fodder for their arguments, critics often tout examples of one or more patents that, in the words of one academic, are "not new, are obvious, are laughably insipid or sometimes all of the above" ("Patent Prescription: A radical cure for the ailing U.S. patent system," A. Jaffe and J. Lerner, IEEE Spectrum Online, Dec. 10, 2004).
