Jonathan S. Masur

Print
Article
Volume 92.6
Disclosure Puzzles in Patent Law
Jonathan S. Masur
John P. Wilson Professor of Law, The University of Chicago Law School.

For helpful comments, thanks to Sarah Burstein, Bernard Chao, Kevin Collins, Laura Dolbow, Tabrez Ebrahim, Jeanne Fromer, Jordi Goodman, Paul Gugliuzza, Tim Holbrook, Mark Lemley, Oskar Liivak, Mike Meurer, Andrew Michaels, Lidiya Mishchenko, Nicholson Price, Arti Rai, Jason Rantanen, Jason Reinecke, Michael Risch, Andres Sawicki, Jake Sherkow, and participants at the Intellectual Property Scholars Conference and the Works-in-Progress Intellectual Property Colloquium. We thank Victoria Fang, Josh Leopold, Joseph Robinson, and Marissa Uri for excellent research assistance. Masur thanks the David and Celia Hilliard Fund and the Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Program in Behavioral Law, Finance and Economics for support.

Lisa Larrimore Ouellette
Deane F. Johnson Professor of Law, Stanford Law School.

For helpful comments, thanks to Sarah Burstein, Bernard Chao, Kevin Collins, Laura Dolbow, Tabrez Ebrahim, Jeanne Fromer, Jordi Goodman, Paul Gugliuzza, Tim Holbrook, Mark Lemley, Oskar Liivak, Mike Meurer, Andrew Michaels, Lidiya Mishchenko, Nicholson Price, Arti Rai, Jason Rantanen, Jason Reinecke, Michael Risch, Andres Sawicki, Jake Sherkow, and participants at the Intellectual Property Scholars Conference and the Works-in-Progress Intellectual Property Colloquium. We thank Victoria Fang, Josh Leopold, Joseph Robinson, and Marissa Uri for excellent research assistance.

Since its inception, patent law has required that inventors publicly disclose information about their inventions in exchange for receiving patent rights. This foundational requirement is policed through multiple doctrines: patents fail “enablement” if “undue experimentation” is needed to practice the invention, and they lack adequate “written description” when they fail to establish the inventor’s “possession” of the invention. Despite disclosure doctrines’ centrality, fundamental puzzles about their application remain unresolved. In Amgen v. Sanofi , the Supreme Court recently took up one such puzzle: Must a patent enable the full scope of the claim or merely some number of working examples? But the Court failed to address long-standing puzzles surrounding this issue. In this Article, Jonathan S. Masur and Lisa Larrimore Ouellette tackle these questions and more. The Article attempts to bring conceptual order to the disclosure doctrines, reconciling them with one another and with the broader animating principles of patent law. These puzzles must be solved if patent law is to fulfill its promises; if they are not, the resulting doctrinal gaps will expose the patent system to strategic behavior by nefarious noninventors—including those aided by new generative artificial intelligence tools—who learn how to acquire the patent quo without paying their quid.

Patent
Print
Article
Volume 90.2
Horizontal Collusion and Parallel Wage Setting in Labor Markets
Jonathan S. Masur
John P. Wilson Professor of Law and Director of the Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Program in Behavioral Law, Finance and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School.
Eric A. Posner
Kirkland & Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Arthur and Esther Kane Research Chair at the University of Chicago Law School.

We thank Curt Bradley, Simon Jacobs, Aneil Kovvali, Filippo Lancieri, Christina Patterson, Randy Picker, Ellie Prager, Steve Salop, Amit Zac, and audiences at the University of Chicago Law School faculty workshop, the Law Review Symposium, and ETH Zurich, for helpful comments, and Sima Biondi, Jonathan Concepción, Millie Cripe, and Charles Tammons for superb research assistance. Eric Posner took a position at the Antitrust Division in the Department of Justice after this paper was substantially completed; the views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.

Horizontal collusion among employers to suppress wages has received almost no attention in the academic literature, in contrast with its more familiar cousin, product-market collusion. The similar economic analysis of labor and product markets might suggest that antitrust should regulate labor and product markets in the same way.

Print
Essay
The Scholar as Coauthor
Jonathan S. Masur
John P. Wilson Professor of Law and David & Celia Hilliard Research Scholar, University of Chicago Law School.

I thank Daniel Abebe, Anu Bradford, Adam Cox, and Jake Gersen for their helpful contributions to this essay.

The task of describing (or even hinting at) Eric Posner’s immense scholarly contributions in just a few thousand words is a daunting one.

Print
Article
86 Special
Posner’s Unlikely Patent Intervention
Jonathan S. Masur
John P. Wilson Professor of Law and David and Celia Hilliard Research Scholar, The University of Chicago Law School.

I thank Saul Levmore for helpful comments; Ashley Kang and Savannah West for excellent research assistance; and the David and Celia Hilliard Fund and the Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Program in Behavioral Law & Economics for support.

At first glance, patent law might seem the least likely place to look for Judge Richard Posner’s impact on the law.

Print
Article
85.4
Cost-Benefits Analysis and the Judicial Role
Jonathan S. Masur
John P. Wilson Professor of Law and David and Celia Hilliard Research Scholar, The University of Chicago Law School

Thanks to David Driesen, Jerry Ellig, Jake Gersen, Daniel Hemel, Jennifer Nou, Cathy Sharkey, David Strauss, Cass Sunstein, Kip Viscusi, and participants at workshops at The University of Chicago Law School and Syracuse Law School for helpful comments, to the Russell Baker Scholars Fund, the David and Celia Hilliard Fund, and the Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Program in Behavioral Law, Finance and Economics for research support, and to Mei Ying Barnes, Hanan Cidor, Kathrine Gutierrez, Christina McClintock, Isabella Nascimento, Holly Newell, and Michael Wheat for excellent research assistance.

Eric A. Posner
Kirkland & Ellis Distinguished Service Professor and Arthur and Esther Kane Research Chair, The University of Chicago Law School

CBA is a decision procedure whose normative basis is what Professor Matthew Adler and one of us has called weak welfarism. Welfarism is the principle that the well-being of people is morally important.

Cost-Benefit Analysis
2
Essay
Booker Reconsidered
Jonathan S. Masur
Assistant Professor of Law, The University of Chicago Law School

I thank Frank Easterbrook, Tom Gorman, Bernard Harcourt, Carissa Hessick, Richard McAdams, and David Sklansky for helpful comments.

Criminal Law Sentencing
Print
Article
76.4
Happiness and Punishment
John Bronsteen
Associate Professor, Loyola University Chicago School of Law
Christopher Buccafusco
Assistant Professor, Chicago-Kent College of Law
Jonathan S. Masur
Assistant Professor, The University of Chicago Law School

We thank Stephanos Bibas, Frederic Bloom, Josh Bowers, Sharon Dolovitch, Brandon Garrett, Bernard Harcourt, Dan Kahan, Adam Kolber, Brian Leiter, Richard McAdams, Eric Posner, Adam Samaha, Stephanie Stern, Lior Strahilevitz, David Strauss, and Jeannie Suk for helpful comments, and Kathleen Rubenstein for excellent research assistance.

Criminal Law Law and Economics Subjective Valuation
2
Article
77.2
Against Feasibility Analysis
Jonathan S. Masur
Assistant Professor of Law, The University of Chicago Law School
Eric A. Posner
Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law, The University of Chicago Law School

Thanks to Emily Buss, Dan Cole, Adam Cox, David Driesen, Frank Easterbrook, Jake Gersen, Martha Nussbaum, Arden Rowell, Adam Samaha, Tom Ulen, Adrian Vermeule, Sasha Volokh, David Weisbach, and participants at a workshop at The University of Chicago Law School for helpful comments, and to Charles Woodworth for excellent research assistance.

Admiralty Law Cost-Benefit Analysis Law and Economics
Print
Article
78.1
Patent Liability Rules as Search Rules
Jonathan S. Masur
Assistant Professor, The University of Chicago Law School

I thank Richard Epstein, Mark Lemley, Saul Levmore, Doug Lichtman, and participants at the Licensing of Intellectual Property Symposium at The University of Chicago Law School for helpful comments. I also thank Joe Bingham for excellent research assistance.

Intellectual Property Law and Economics Patent

Volumes