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Pam is a Board Member of the Open Source Initiative and the principal of Chestek Legal in Raleigh, North Carolina. She works with creative communities, giving practical legal advice on branding, marketing, and protecting and sharing content. Pam has authored several scholarly articles, has a legal blog at Property, Intangible, and was formerly an adjunct professor at Western New England College School of Law.
Authored Comments
I believe some countries have laws that provide for a mandatory patent license if a patent isn't being practiced. I think the difficulty with it is the ambiguity of a lot of the patents - how do you ever know you need a license until after the lawsuit is over? I suspect a lot of patent attorneys would tell you that they've seen patent lawsuits over patents they never would have spotted as a problem in a search, because the patent owner finds a less obvious theory of infringement.
How about a "loser pays" system, would that work? The common criticism of that system is that it also as an obstacle for an underfunded plaintiff. But it seems to be pretty successful in other countries.