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The Cost Of Confusion: The Paradox Of Trademarked Pharmaceuticals, Hannah Brennan
The Cost Of Confusion: The Paradox Of Trademarked Pharmaceuticals, Hannah Brennan
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
The United States spends nearly $1,000 per person annually on drugs—forty percent more than the next highest spender, Canada, and more than twice the amount France and Germany spend. Although myriad factors contribute to high drug spending in the United States, intellectual property law plays a crucial and well-documented role in inhibiting access to cheaper, generic medications. Yet, for the most part, the discussion of the relationship between intellectual property law and drug spending has centered on patent protection. Recently, however, a few researchers have turned their attention to a different avenue of exclusivity—trademark law. New studies suggest that pharmaceutical …
Improving Patent Notice And Remedies: A Critique Of The Ftc's 2011 Report, Alan Devlin
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, …
Pharmaceutical Patent Litigation Settlements: Balancing Patent & Antitrust Policy Through Institutional Choice, Timothy A. Cook
Pharmaceutical Patent Litigation Settlements: Balancing Patent & Antitrust Policy Through Institutional Choice, Timothy A. Cook
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Should a branded pharmaceutical company be allowed to pay a generic competitor to stay out of the market for a drug? Antitrust policy implies that such a deal should be prohibited, but the answer becomes less clear when the transaction is packaged as a patent-litigation settlement. Since Congress passed the Hatch-Waxman Act, which encourages generic manufacturers to challenge pharmaceutical patent validity, settlements of this kind have been on the rise. Congress, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission have condemned these agreements as anticompetitive and costly to American consumers, but none of these bodies has been able to …