Professor Jonathan Barnett

February 1, 2021

Jonathan M. Barnett is the Torrey H. Webb Professor of Law at the University of Southern California School of Law. He is the author of Innovators, Firms, and Markets: The Organizational Logic of Intellectual Property (Oxford University Press 2021) and has published widely in scholarly journals on antitrust and intellectual property law and policy. He also comments and speaks regularly on legal, policy, and business developments in these areas. Prior to academia, he practiced corporate law at Cleary Gottlieb in New York.

Don’t Tax Invention: The Risks of a Patent Tax

September 4, 2025

By Sujai Shivakumar and Chris Borges The Commerce Department is reportedly considering a novel revenue-raising idea to address the national debt: a “patent tax.” Under this proposal, patent holders would be required to pay the federal government between 1 and 5 percent of their patents’ assessed value each year. While the

The United States Needs a National Standards Strategy

July 16, 2025

By Richard Taffet and Chris Borges Competition among nations for technological and economic leadership is intense, especially between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC has followed a decades-long, targeted strategy focused on leadership in critical and emerging technologies (CETs), and, according to some, it has

How Most-Favored Nation Policy Could Undermine U.S. Leadership

July 10, 2025

By Dr. Anne Pritchett The United States is the global leader in biopharmaceutical innovation. This leadership is built on the pillars of strong intellectual property protection, substantial investment in research and development (R&D), and a robust innovation ecosystem. These factors, combined with a market-based system that supports competitive drug pricing, encourage innovation and