Essentials of Intellectual Property: Law, Economics, and Strategy (Essentials Series)

The strength of this book is that it provides a comprehensible introduction to intellectual property - focusing on patents. If you want to learn something about intellectual property without wading too deep into lawyerspeak - this book may interest you. In addition to patents - trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets are discussed; other aspects of intellectual property are waved at. The last chapter provides dated coverage of intellectual property as it relates to the Internet - mostly focusing on business method patents. This is interesting from a business perspective but the authors do not seem versed in the technical aspects of E-Commerce. Laches and estoppel are demystified and the book presents what looks like solid advice on how to enforce your rights against a group of infringers (attack the weakest one first). There are clearly divided sections (making the frequent pauses that I occasionally made between readings convenient), key ideas are highlighted in an attractive manner and charts and graphs are well presented.

I'm not sure there is enough in depth information in this book to make it really useful. Just before the authors really dig into a subject they roll out their well-oiled marketing spiel - "consult a lawyer/professional on this issue". Patent law is even compared to brain surgery at one point. While consulting with a lawyer on serious patent litigation is probably good advice - it would have been nice if the authors had gone into more depth on the advice a lawyer might give. Throughout the book, patent law is treated as an impenetrable black box - the reader can get a look at the outside and hear a little about what goes on inside but opening the box entirely is expressly forbidden. I was repeatedly given the impressiion that the main purpose of this book was to serve to market the services of intellectual property attorneys and consultants to corporate executives.

Another flaw in the book is that the index is weak - which, along with the sparse table of contents and vague referrals to previous chapters - makes the book a poor reference. Another irritating blemish is that while the book presents a number of statistics, it includes no information on where they came from. Some sort of footnote referring to sources would have been nice.

Additional note (15 Jul): If you are at all interested in studying or learning about patents I highly recommend Patent it Yourself by David Pressman. I've only read the first few chapters but it's already clear that Patent it Yourself is ever so much more comprehensive, useful and practical than Essentials of Intellectual Property.

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