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Empirical Evidence Of Drug Pricing Games - A Citizen's Pathway Gone Astray, Robin C. Feldman, Evan Frondorf, Andrew Cordova Dec 2015

Empirical Evidence Of Drug Pricing Games - A Citizen's Pathway Gone Astray, Robin C. Feldman, Evan Frondorf, Andrew Cordova

Robin C Feldman

The FDA’s citizen petition process was created in the 1970s as part of an effort to fashion more participatory regimes, in which ordinary citizens could access the administrative process. The theoretical underpinnings hypothesize that a participatory structure will prevent regulatory agencies from being captured by the very industries they were intended to police. Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that the FDA’s citizen petition process may have taken a different turn. This empirical study explores whether pharmaceutical companies are systematically using citizen petitions to try to delay the approval of generic competitors. Delaying generic entry of a drug — even by a …


Federalism, First Amendment & Patents: The Fraud Fallacy, Robin C. Feldman Dec 2014

Federalism, First Amendment & Patents: The Fraud Fallacy, Robin C. Feldman

Robin C Feldman

Few arguments echo as strongly throughout United States constitutional history as those related to the role of the states in the federal union. Shifting across time, the role of the states in general has moved from a model of dualism — characterized by a strict separation of federal and state dominion — to a model of overlapping and concurrent powers. In the modern context of overlapping powers, the preemption doctrine manages the intricate areas of overlap, with topics ranging from antitrust to immigration.

Yet the concept of federalism, as applied by the circuit courts in relation to patents, has traveled …


Intellectual Property Wrongs, Robin Feldman Aug 2012

Intellectual Property Wrongs, Robin Feldman

Robin C Feldman

Intellectual property has become a pervasive presence in society. Seeping into every nook and cranny of American life, intellectual property casts a protective haze over everything from the words of an email to the sequence of genes. Increasingly, these rights are being pressed into the service of schemes that have little to do with the advancement of societal goals and much to do with societal waste. What do we, as a society, do when the rights that we have created with such lofty goals and noble heart are diverted toward less admirable pursuits, that is, when IP rights become the …


The Giants Among Us, Robin Feldman, Thomas Ewing Aug 2011

The Giants Among Us, Robin Feldman, Thomas Ewing

Robin C Feldman

The patent world is undergoing a change of seismic proportions. A small number of entities have quietly amassed vast treasuries of patents. These are not the typical patent trolls that we have come to expect. Rather, these entities have participants such Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, the World Bank, and non-profit institutions. The largest and most secretive of these has accumulated a staggering 30,000-60,000 patents.

Investing thousands of hours of research and using publicly available sources, we pieced together a detailed picture of these giants and their activities. We consider the potential positive effects, including facilitating rewards for forgotten inventors, creating …


Differing Shades Of Meaning, Robin C. Feldman Jul 2007

Differing Shades Of Meaning, Robin C. Feldman

Robin C Feldman

The relationship between patent law and antitrust law has challenged legal minds since the emergence of antitrust law in the late 19th century. In reductionist form, the two concepts pose a natural contradiction: One encourages monopoly while the other restricts it. To avoid uncomfortable dissonance, the trend across time has been to try to harmonize patent and antitrust law. In particular, harmonization efforts in recent decades have led Congress and the courts to engage in a series of attempts, some aborted and some half-formed, to graft antitrust doctrines onto patent law. These efforts have failed to resolve the conflicts.

This …