The legal notion of abuse of patent rights

The debate on the possible counterproductive effects of the patent system has been on many agendas in the past decade. Different phenomena are being described which relate to the increasing number of patents, their quality, their scope and the ways they are being used and applied for.
 
Against this background, it comes to see whether the patent system is adequately equipped to deal with this wide variety of issues. Although being quite a flexible and abstract system, patent regulation is in essence a very positivistic legal entity that hardly developed or incorporated jurisprudential doctrines. Moreover, the quality of patents very much depends on the abilities of patent examiners, yet these are under pressure with the increase of patenting activities.

The workshop aims to investigate a number of cases described as potential abuses of the patent system so as  to analyse whether the patent system as it stands can deal with the matter; whether positive patent law adaptation is needed; or whether an incorporation of the doctrine of 'abuse of rights' into patent law could provide a useful mechanism.