Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

A Machete For The Patent Thicket: Using Noerr-Pennington Doctrine’S Sham Exception To Challenge Abusive Patent Tactics By Pharmaceutical Companies, Lisa Orucevic

Vanderbilt Law Review

Outrageous drug prices have dominated news coverage of the American healthcare system for years. Yet despite widespread condemnation of skyrocketing drug prices, nothing seems to change. Pharmaceutical companies can raise drug prices with impunity because they hold patents on their drugs, which give them monopolies. These monopolies are only supposed to last twenty years, and then competing lower-cost drugs like generics can enter the market, driving down the costs of pharmaceuticals for all. But pharmaceutical companies have created “patent thickets,” dense webs of overlapping patents surrounding one drug, which have artificially extended the companies’ monopolies for years or even decades …

Recent Decisions, Timothy J. Peaden, Charles S. Baugh, Marc W. Joseph, Melissa Q. Windham

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Antitrust--Noerr-Pennington Extends Immunity from Sherman Act to Foreign Litigation and Foreign Acts that result in Alleged Antitrust Violations, Coastal States Marketing, Inc. v. Hunt, 694 F.2d 1358 (5th Cir. 1983).

Antitrust--Foreign Import Cartels are Liable under the Sherman Act although domestic export competitors are shielded with a Webb-Pomerene exemption. Daishowa International v. North Coast Export Co., 1982-2 Trade Cas.64,774 (N.D. Cal.).

Book Reviews, Daniel H. Benson, Maxwell Bloomfield, Donald E. Schwartz

Vanderbilt Law Review

THEY CALL IT JUSTICE: COMMAND INFLUENCE AND THE COURT-MARTIAL SYSTEM. By Luther C. West. New York: The Viking Press, 1977. Pp.xii, 302. $12.95.

Reviewed by Daniel H. Benson

In his book West is dealing with a subject that is difficult to discuss without generating hostility, misunderstanding, and, occasionally, incredulity. He is attacking the classic military understanding of the basic purpose of the court-martial system. He asks the reader to accept his word and assurances concerning the accuracy of the problems he describes, over the assurances of the military justice establishment that all is well. In doing all of this, West …