Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Legislation

University of Michigan Law School

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Incentives

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Law

Improving Patent Notice And Remedies: A Critique Of The Ftc's 2011 Report, Alan Devlin Jan 2012

Improving Patent Notice And Remedies: A Critique Of The Ftc's 2011 Report, Alan Devlin

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

2011 was an eventful year for those interested in patent law. In March, the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") released a report that urges the Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO") and courts to remedy perceived inadequacies underlying the U.S. patent system. The FTC observes that people of skill in the art routinely encounter difficulty in determining the meaning, and hence exclusive scope, of a patent's claims. Not only does this failure of notice stymie the efficient dispersion of technology throughout the economy, the FTC argues, but the judicial process can aggravate the problem by granting inappropriate remedies in patent-infringement cases. Then, …


Patents V. Statutory Exclusivities In Biological Pharmaceuticals - Do We Really Need Both, Yaniv Heled Jan 2012

Patents V. Statutory Exclusivities In Biological Pharmaceuticals - Do We Really Need Both, Yaniv Heled

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Over the past decade or so, the United States has been the arena of a boisterous debate regarding the creation of a new regulatory framework for the approval of generic versions of biologics-based pharmaceutical products (also known as "biological products" and "biologics")--an important and increasingly growing class of drugs. The basic purpose of such a framework is to create a fast and less-costly route to FDA approval for biologics that would be similar or identical to already-approved biological products--typically ones that are sold on the market at monopoly rates--thereby allowing cheaper versions of such medicines to enter the market. One …


Hatch-Waxmanizing Copyright, Michal Shur-Ofry Jan 2011

Hatch-Waxmanizing Copyright, Michal Shur-Ofry

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This Essay presents a novel proposal for counter balancing "copyright overspills." In the background of the discussion is the common reality of users succumbing to rights holders' attempts to license uses which are most likely fair uses or completely free of copyright protection. These practices have attracted considerable attention in recent literature. Most scholarly proposals in this context emphasize the need to clarify the contours of the fair use doctrine and to remove doctrinal ambiguities. Yet these initiatives are probably insufficient to overcome users' risk aversion in copyright markets due to an inherent structural imbalance within copyright law. While the …


Paper Tigers: Rethinking The Relationship Between Copyright And Scholarly Publishing, Alissa Centivany Jan 2011

Paper Tigers: Rethinking The Relationship Between Copyright And Scholarly Publishing, Alissa Centivany

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Discontent is growing in academia over the practices of the proprietary scholarly publishing industry. Scholars and universities criticize the expensive subscription fees, restrictive access policies, and copyright assignment requirements of many journals. These practices seem fundamentally unfair given that the industries' two main inputs-articles and peer-review-are provided to it free of charge. Furthermore, while many publishers continue to enjoy substantial profit margins, many elite university libraries have been forced to triage their collections, choosing between purchasing monographs or subscribing to journals, or in some cases, doing away with "non-essential" materials altogether. The situation is even more dire for non-elite schools, …


Does Misery Love Company - Evidence From Pharmaceutical Markets Before And After The Orphan Drug Act, Frank R. Lichtenberg, Joel Waldfogel Jan 2009

Does Misery Love Company - Evidence From Pharmaceutical Markets Before And After The Orphan Drug Act, Frank R. Lichtenberg, Joel Waldfogel

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The possibility that small populations would see few medications developed for their conditions has [...] led the U.S. Congress to pass the 1983 Orphan Drug Act ("ODA"), giving firms special incentives to develop drugs for diseases afflicting fewer than 200,000 persons per year.[...][U]under the Act, drug makers receive seven years of exclusive marketing upon FDA approval of newly-developed drugs qualifying as "orphan drugs"--i.e., drugs for disorders affecting fewer than 200,000 persons.[...]Together, [the] provisions (a) increase the effective market size; and (b) reduce fixed (sunk) costs. In doing so, the Act provides a natural experiment for measuring the impact of increased …


Pdufa And Initial U.S. Drug Launches, Mary K. Olson Jan 2009

Pdufa And Initial U.S. Drug Launches, Mary K. Olson

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

In the 1970s and 1980s, many pharmaceutical firms launched new drugs abroad prior to gaining U.S. approval. Consequently, U.S. patients often faced delays in accessing important new medicines. High regulatory barriers to entry, such as a stringent regulation and a lengthy drug review process, contributed to this problem. This Article examines the impact of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), and subsequent increases in the speed of FDA review, on the likelihood of initial U.S. drug launches. These factors are hypothesized to lower regulatory barriers to entry in the U.S. pharmaceutical market. The results show that increased drug review …


Why Fdca Section 505(U) Should Not Concern Us Greatly, Kyle Faget Jan 2009

Why Fdca Section 505(U) Should Not Concern Us Greatly, Kyle Faget

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Among the many amendments found in the Food and Drug Administration Amendment Act of 2007 (FDAAA) is a provision at the end of the act, Section 505(u), which grants chiral switches five years of market exclusivity under certain circumstances. Prior to Congressional enactment of the FDAAA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused to award new chemical entity (NCE) status to enantiomers of previously approved racemic mixtures. The FDA defines a new chemical entity ("NCE") as a drug that contains no active moiety that has been approved by the FDA in any other application submitted under Section 505(b) of the …


Trends In Protection For Informational Works Under Copyright Law During The 19th And 20th Centuries, Miriam Bitton Oct 2006

Trends In Protection For Informational Works Under Copyright Law During The 19th And 20th Centuries, Miriam Bitton

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The debate over databases protection has failed to identify and discuss some of its most basic and preliminary assumptions, accepting instead many of the historical aspects involved as given. This Article therefore seeks to challenge these underlying assumptions by providing a fresh look at the historical dimension of the debate. One common argument regarding database protection is that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Feist v. Rural Publications Inc. brought about a dramatic change in the legal landscape, displacing the then-accepted "sweat of the brow" rationale for protecting rights in databases. This Article's historical analysis therefore thoroughly examines the treatment …