Law Commons^™

The Uneasy Case For Patent Law, Rachel E. Sachs

Michigan Law Review

A central tenet of patent law scholarship holds that if any scientific field truly needs patents to stimulate progress, it is pharmaceuticals. Patents are thought to be critical in encouraging pharmaceutical companies to develop and commercialize new therapies, due to the high costs of researching diseases, developing treatments, and bringing drugs through the complex, expensive approval process. Scholars and policymakers often point to patent law’s apparent success in the pharmaceutical industry to justify broader calls for more expansive patent rights.

This Article challenges this conventional wisdom about the centrality of patents to drug development by presenting a case study of …

An Administrative Meter Maid: Using Inter Partes Review And Post-Grant Review To Curb Exclusivity Parking Via The "Failure To Market" Provision Of The Hatch-Waxman Act, Brian T. Apel

Michigan Law Review

Congress created the unique Hatch-Waxman framework in 1984 to increase the availability of low-cost generic drugs while preserving patent incentives for new drug development. The Hatch-Waxman Act rewards generic drug companies that successfully challenge a pharmaceutical patent: 180 days of market exclusivity before any other generic firm can enter the market. When a generic firm obtains this reward, sometimes drug developers agree to pay generic firms to delay entering the market. These pay-for-delay agreements give rise to exclusivity parking and run counter to congressional intent by delaying full generic drug competition. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act created …

Personal Jurisdiction Over Aliens In Patent Infringement Actions: A Uniform Approach Toward The Situs Of The Tort, David Wille

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines current approaches to the question of personal jurisdiction over alien patent infringers. Part I describes personal jurisdiction requirements in the context of patent infringement suits against aliens. The leading case addressing these requirements has been interpreted differently by several courts, thus resulting in conflicting outcomes. Part II explains the current controversy over the locus of the tort of patent infringement. The three different modes of reasoning currently used by courts to determine the locus of the tort would allow immunity from suit for the alien in at least two hypothetical cases. This Part concludes that in order …