The number of international patent filings dropped last year for the first time since 1978 as companies hit by the global economic downturn sought fewer new protections on their intellectual property, the U.N. said Monday. Most patents filed in 2009 were for computer technology, followed by pharmaceuticals and ...

A fired Bristol-Myers-Squibb Co. employee stole trade secrets from the drugmaker in a plot to launch his own pharmaceutical business in his native India, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday. Shalin Jhaveri, 29, of Syracuse, was charged in U.S. District Court with stealing trade secrets and proprietary information ...

A judge on Tuesday weighed whether a lawsuit should proceed that seeks to invalidate a company's patents on two genes linked to an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The case challenging whether anyone can hold patents on human genes has broad implications for the biotechnology industry and genetics-based medical research. Last March, the American Civil Liberties Union ...