Events Calendar

Laura Pedraza-Farina laura.pedraza-farina@law.northwestern.edu

Professor of Law

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

The Ghost in the Patent System: Why Courts Struggle to Define Patent Law’s “Ordinary Artisan” and How a Network Approach Can Fix It

The structure of patent law is built around the perspective of a central character: the “person having ordinary skill in the art” (or PHOSITA). Despite its centrality to major patent law doctrines, who the PHOSITA is and how the PHOSITA behaves is both undertheorized and under-explored empirically. In this Article, we conduct an empirical study of the role of the PHOSITA in patent litigation and propose a theoretical framework—based on a network understanding of communities of innovators–to guide how courts should define and apply the PHOSITA to different patent doctrines.

BLB 235 and via Zoom:  https://uiowa.zoom.us/j/96930032594

If you are attending in person and would like to reserve a boxed lunch, please RSVP to sara-k-clark@uiowa.edu