1 --- TIME --- Liability ruling is only 6 years, patents are 20
Jerome H. Reichman and Ana Santos Rutschman ’24, Bunyan S. Womble Professor of Law at Duke Law School focusing largely on IP law including comparative and international IP law and former special advisor to the United States National Academies and the International Council for Science (ICSU) on the subject of legal protection for databases, teaches and researches IP law including being a internationally recognized expert on vaccine law and Bio Intellectual Property Scholar in 2017, “A Codified Liability Regime to Stimulate Greater Investment in Subpatentable Innovation,” UC Davis Law Review, February 2024, Vol. 57, Pg 2056, https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/archives/57/3/codified-liability-regime-stimulate-greater-investment-subpatentable-innovation, Accessed 7-11-2024 by NT-RS through LexisNexis
1. Short-Term Entry-Level Exclusivity Followed by a Specified Liability Period
The sole purpose of a limited period of exclusivity at the outset is to enable the subpatentable innovator to establish a viable distribution system. Given that the innovation in question is subpatentable by definition, a lengthy period of exclusive protection is inadvisable. The life cycle of technological innovation is already fast-moving as a rule,96 and the possibility of fully open competition should not be unduly delayed. Therefore, we propose the adoption of a two-year period of [*2057] exclusivity at the outset, followed by a four-year period, during which the "take-and-pay" rule applies. After this cumulative period of protection, free competition would prevail.97
USPTO.gov ‘23
(“35 U.S.C. 154 Contents and term of patent; provisional rights,” pg online @ https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2701.html //pa-ef)
5 U.S.C. 154 Contents and term of patent; provisional rights.
(a) IN GENERAL.—
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(2) TERM.—Subject to the payment of fees under this title, such grant shall be for a term beginning on the date on which the patent issues and ending 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, if the application contains a specific reference to an earlier filed application or applications under section 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) from the date on which the earliest such application was filed.