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- Title
PATENT INFRINGEMENT AS TRESPASS.
- Authors
MacLeod, Adam J.
- Abstract
The now-conventional account of patent law holds that infringement is a strict liability offense, meaning that intent is not an element of an infringement claim. This account heightens the apparent injustice of patent law's special knowledge problem, that as ambiguous descriptions of intangible resources, patent claims do not sufficiently make potential infringers aware of a patentee's right to exclude. Particularly in the age of so-called "patent thickets," clusters of patents of variable merit which are indistinguishable from each other and from prior art, strict liability for infringement seems rather hard. These problems reflect a conceptual misunderstanding. When infringement is understood as a species of trespass, as it was long described in American law, the various aspects of infringement doctrine fall into place. Common law traditionally recognizes three forms of trespass. Together, those three forms explain all of infringement doctrine as a coherent whole and resolve the apparent injustices that seem problematic on the conventional account of infringement. They also suggest that traditional equitable maxims should be used to determine when injunctive relief is appropriate to remedy ongoing, willful infringement.
- Subjects
UNITED States; PATENT infringement; PATENT law; STRICT liability; COMMON law; TRESPASS; CONTRIBUTORY infringement (Copyright &; trademark)
- Publication
Alabama Law Review, 2018, Vol 69, Issue 4, p723
- ISSN
0002-4279
- Publication type
Article