A building body of evidence reveals that the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is granting a significant number of invalid patents that create inefficiencies and chill innovation. At least part of the blame can be placed on the design of the patent system, which places most of the costs associated with understanding the nature and novelty of a claim on the government patent examiner, rather than on the inventor. After considering how a range of inventors might react to this incentive system, we consider reforms that place stronger incentives on the inventor to justify a patent award.

Consumer protection law is notoriously imbalanced with respect to the superior ability of sellers to process information as compared to their customers. Yet despite the resulting comprehension asymmetries, the design of consumer contract law and disclosure requirements regularly fail to encourage sellers to communicate meaningfully with the target audience. This chapter explores how consumer protection law tacitly encourages incomprehensibility and proposes reforms which would provide increased incentives for meaningful communication between buyers and sellers.