academics

When Eli first started practicing in the late aughts, he found that a lot of what he was seeing about patents in various academic papers and studies, on Capitol Hill, and even in Supreme Court decisions, didn’t really reflect the reality of what he was seeing in practice, talking to innovators. In contrast, Professor Adam Mossoff’s compelling work, including articles in various general interest newspapers, stood out.  Not surprisingly, he is largely responsible for providing the intellectual foundation that has helped shift the anti-patent narrative.  So, it was a huge honor to talk to someone who not only helped shape Eli’s own thinking about patent and IP policy issues but has really shaped the current debates in Washington, DC about these issues.

Professor Mossoff is currently Professor of Law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, and a Visiting Intellectual Property Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

On this episode, Professor Mossoff and Eli discuss academics’ impact on IP policy and many other subjects, including:

• how Richard Epstein influenced Professor Mossoff’s scholarship,
• how the ideals of classical liberalism relate to intellectual property rights,
• the debate among conservatives and libertarians regarding IP issues,
• what’s wrong about framing IP rights as being all about providing incentives,
• the Supreme Court’s approach to patent cases,
• why Congress and the executive branch – not the Supreme Court – are the better path for improving America’s patent system,
• “Why Do Law Professors Do What They Do?”
• how law school professors influence the patent policy debate,
• how trade organizations try to shape the patent policy debate by using law professors and other prominent attorneys,
• importance of law school professors making it clear when they’re acting as advocates v. as academics,
• navigating junk science studies/statistical claims about the patent system,
• importance of engaging in a positive research agenda about the patent system instead of just reacting to bad scholarship,
• empirical research overwhelmingly contradicting the patent holdup theory over the last 10 years,
• educating Congressman Darrell Issa and the importance of having evidence and data on your side,
• contradiction of China strengthening its own patent system while continuing to steal IP from other countries and having no rule of law otherwise,
• the unprecedented response by the pharmaceutical industry to the COVID?19 pandemic thanks to the foundation previously created by America’s patent system,
• how current changes to the patent system can undermine a similar response to the future,
• and much more!

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