Fair-Use: Scientific Research Exception?

7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner is writing Larry Lessig's Blog for the rest of the week. In his latest post, Judge Posner outlined a proposal for expansion a fair-use exception for patent law. Specifically, he and Professor Bill Landes have promoted the concept of allowing unlicensed use of scientific research tools by researchers who have no plans to patent their results.

Landes and I advocate an expansion of the patent fair-use principle to allow scientists to use patented research tools (such as the oncomouse) without license--provided the scientists aren’t allowed to use the tools to produce their own patented products!

Their monograph (The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Law) is available as a free download. (Link)