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The Supreme Court’S Devaluation Of U.S. Patents, Christopher M. Holman
The Supreme Court’S Devaluation Of U.S. Patents, Christopher M. Holman
Faculty Works
In a span of three weeks during the spring of 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court issued three patent decisions, bringing the total number of patent decisions for the 2016-2017 term to six. This means that the October 2016 term ties the previous record of six patent decisions in the October 2014 term. This represents a tremendous increase in the number of patent decisions compared to earlier times, and particularly the early days of the Federal Circuit. For reference, during the first quarter of a century the Federal Circuit was in existence, the Supreme Court heard on average less than one …
In Defense Of Secondary Pharmaceutical Patents: Response To The Un's Guidelines For Pharmaceutical Patent Examination, Christopher M. Holman
In Defense Of Secondary Pharmaceutical Patents: Response To The Un's Guidelines For Pharmaceutical Patent Examination, Christopher M. Holman
Faculty Works
In 2015 the United Nations Development Programme issued a document entitled Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Patent Examination: Examining Pharmaceutical Patents from a Public Health Perspective (the “Guidelines”). The heart of the Guidelines is a category-by-category examination of eight types of “secondary” pharmaceutical patent claims: Markush claims; selection patents; polymorphs; enantiomers; salts; ethers and esters; compositions; doses; combinations; prodrugs; metabolites; and new medical uses. The Guidelines advise patent offices to apply heightened patentability requirements to these claims in a manner that would effectively deny patent protection to important pharmaceutical innovations currently afforded patent protection. In particular, the Guidelines postulate that many forms …