The Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2011 by Peg Brickley
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304778304576375832688371692.html

The sheer size of Nortel’s portfolio expands the strategic options for buyers, said Robert Merges…. “The way this game is played, someone throws a stack of patents on the table, and someone else throws a stack on the table and the one with the shortest stack comes out on the losing end,” Mr. Merges said.

The Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2011 by Jess Bravin
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576375451677652800.html

A patent overhaul bill … permits third parties to challenge patents, even after they are granted, through administrative proceedings at the Patent and Trademark Office. Robert Merges … said the challenge provision in the bill “just became a little more important” in light of the high court’s ruling. “It’s a cheaper alternative to litigation, and some people think it’s a better forum for trying to invalidate patents,” he said.

The New York Times, April 4, 2011 by Claire Cain Miller
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/technology/05google.html?scp=3&sq=Berkeley&st=nyt

“Google is basically buying legitimacy and buying a foothold in one part of the cellphone market,” said Robert P. Merges, director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley.

American University Intellectual Property Brief, November 25, 2010 by Caroline Gousse
http://bit.ly/hjSOd8

US legal scholars have seen an economic justification in the admission of a parody defense. Robert P. Merges, for example, assumes that the parody defense should be admitted when “there is a clear market failure for parody licenses.”

The New York Times, November 23, 2010 by Verne G. Kopytoff
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/24oracle.html

“This is pretty dramatic,” said Robert P. Merges, a technology law professor at University of California, Berkeley. He said it sent a loud message to companies to pay attention to any signs of copyright infringement. “It’s a game-ending home run type of result. It will tell people ‘Hey, we need to be careful.'”

KQED, November 1, 2010 Host Stephanie Martin
http://www.kqed.org/a/californiamoney/R201011011557

[Merges] said the professor signed intellectual property agreements with both entities, and the court will have to sort it all out. “That’s one issue. The other, probably the bigger impact, will be that all of the University lawyers and all of the company lawyers will look at this case and say, ‘My God, we better get this all straightened out long in advance to make sure we don’t wind up in a case like this.'”

States News Service, September 22, 2010
http://corporate.lexisnexis.com/news (Link no longer active. Go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for article)

“On the Complex Economics of Patent Scope” was a breakthrough piece of scholarship that has helped shape the debate over the patent law’s influence on technological innovation. The article concluded that patent law should strive to preserve competition for technological improvements, even at the expense of eroding incentives for pioneer firms to some extent…. In one of the conference’s anticipated highlights, Merges will present his own reflections on the article he co-wrote in 1990, along with thoughts on how today’s patent system is shaping technological advancement.

The New York Times, July 8, 2010 by Steve Lohr
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/technology/09patent.html?_r=2

The R.I.M. case, said Robert P. Merges, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, proved to be “a major milestone in the evolution of the patent ecosystem,” spurring the adoption of tactics to reduce the risk of huge payouts.