Patents in the life sciences industries are a key form of intellectual property (IP), particularly for products such as brand-name drugs and medical devices. However, trade secrets can also be a useful tool for many types of innovations. In appropriate cases, trade secrets can offer long-term protection of IP for a lower financial cost than patenting. This type of protection must be approached ...

President Obama has discovered first-hand how difficult wrangling the interests of a dozen nations can be. For six years, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been in negotiations and might prove to be Obama’s crowning foreign policy achievement. If the 12-nation Free Trade Agreement (FTA) passes, it will shape the future of economic development in the Asia-Pacific and cement the U.S. as the...

Can something be both open and secret? That is the conundrum facing society as trade secret rights chafe against patent in cutting-edge, biologic medicine. The conflict unsurprising. Trade has emerged a relatively late bloomer among family of intellectual property only recently begun to establish boundaries its own space, process which it will inevitably knock other doctrines already occupying ...