Indiana University recently hosted a conference on the impact of a transformative article co-authored by Berkeley Law Professor Robert Merges. At Patent Scope Revisited: Merges & Nelson’s ‘On the Complex Economics of Patent Scope,’ 20 Years After, scholars discussed the dramatic changes in patent law since 1990. The article showed that patent scope determinations had tremendous significance to the patent system, but had attracted little economic analysis. Merges and co-author Richard Nelson illuminated how such decisions affect technological development, asserting that the law should preserve competition for improvements. Merges concluded the conference with a presentation on his article and the modern patent system.