This month we highlight four papers, two related to institutional design and two related to patent law. The first paper addresses the creation of specialized courts and why these courts persist. The second paper focuses on the problem of myopia in comparative institutional analyses of legal institutions and the need to incorporate comparative failure analysis. The third and fourth papers address patent law, respectively, the creation of a database to conduct empirical studies of patent litigation in U.S. district courts, and the U.S. Patent Office’s attempts to provide clarity in the area of patent eligibility through guidance documents.