On Monday, June 1, Professor Jacob Sherkow will deliver a lecture at the 15th Waseda-Penn Global Patent Law Conference in Japan. His talk will introduce the fundamentals of indirect patent infringement under U.S. law, with a focus on inducement doctrine under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b). Drawing on recent litigation and scholarship — including the “infringement by label” debate highlighted in the Supreme Court case Hikma v. Amarin — the talk will critically examine how current case law risks expanding inducement liability beyond its traditional requirement of active encouragement and causation. In doing so, the lecture will highlight broader questions about the proper limits of indirect infringement and the role of regulatory contexts in shaping liability—issues that also resonate in ongoing Japanese debates on the scope and structure of secondary patent liability.
