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Full-Text Articles in Law

Patent Punting: How Fda And Antitrust Courts Undermine The Hatch-Waxman Act To Avoid Dealing With Patents, Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Daniel A. Crane Jan 2015

Patent Punting: How Fda And Antitrust Courts Undermine The Hatch-Waxman Act To Avoid Dealing With Patents, Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Daniel A. Crane

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Under the Hatch-Waxman Act, patent law and FDA regulation work together to determine the timing of generic entry in the market for drugs. But FDA has sought to avoid any responsibility for reading patents, insisting that its role in administering the patent provisions of the Hatch-Waxman Act is purely ministerial. This gap in regulatory oversight has allowed innovators to use irrelevant patents to defer generic competition. Meanwhile, patent litigation has set the stage for anticompetitive settlements rather than adjudication of the patent issues in the courts. As these settlements have provoked antitrust litigation, antitrust courts have proven no more willing …


Pay-For-Delay Settlements In The Wake Of Actavis, Michael L. Fialkoff May 2014

Pay-For-Delay Settlements In The Wake Of Actavis, Michael L. Fialkoff

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

“Pay-for-delay” settlements, also known as reverse payments, arise when a generic manufacturer pursues FDA approval of a generic version of a brand-name drug. If a patent protects the brand-name drug, the generic manufacturer has the option of contesting the validity of the patent or arguing that its product does not infringe the patent covering the brand-name drug. If the generic manufacturer prevails on either of these claims, the FDA will approve its generic version for sale. Approval of a generic version of a brand-name drug reduces the profitability of the brand-name drug by forcing the brand-name manufacturer to price its …


Actavis, The Reverse Payment Fallacy, And The Continuing Need For Regulatory Solutions, Daniel A. Crane Jan 2014

Actavis, The Reverse Payment Fallacy, And The Continuing Need For Regulatory Solutions, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

The Actavis decision punted more than it decided. Although narrowing the range of possible outcomes by rejecting the legal rules at the extremes and opting for a rule of reason middle ground, the opinion failed to grapple with the most challenging issues of regulatory policy raised by pharmaceutical patent settlements. In particular, it failed to clearly delineate the social costs of permitting and disallowing patent settlements, avoided grappling with the crucial issues of patent validity and infringement, and erroneously focused on “reverse payments” as a distinctive antitrust problem when equally or more anticompetitive settlements can be crafted without reverse payments. …


Injunctive And Reverse Settlements In Competition-Blocking Litigation, Keith N. Hylton, Sungjoon Cho Oct 2013

Injunctive And Reverse Settlements In Competition-Blocking Litigation, Keith N. Hylton, Sungjoon Cho

Faculty Scholarship

We distinguish standard settlements, in which the status quo is preserved, and injunctive settlements, which prohibit the defendant's activity. The reverse (payment) settlement is a special type of injunctive settlement. We examine the divergence between private and social incentives to settle and policies that would minimize socially undesirable injunctive and reverse settlements (e.g., banning reverse settlements). The results are applied to competition-blocking litigation, such as patent infringement and antidumping.


Strength Of The International Trade Commission As A Patent Venue, Christopher A. Cotropia Jan 2011

Strength Of The International Trade Commission As A Patent Venue, Christopher A. Cotropia

Law Faculty Publications

The data suggests that the ITC is here to stay and almost all patent enforcement actions will take place, at least in part, in the ITC. The landscape of patent enforcement has permanently changed, and the ITC is a solid part of it. This Article reaches these conclusions by first, in Part I, describing the unique features of the ITC that make it a favored venue of patentees. Part II describes the Federal Circuit's decision in Kyocera and the various postulates as to its impact. Part III describes the study, the specific data obtained, and the results. Part IV analyzes …