Law Commons^™

The Law, Culture, And Economics Of Fashion, C. Scott Hemphill, Jeannie Suk

Center for Contract and Economic Organization

Fashion is one of the world’s most important creative industries. It is the major output of a global business with annual U.S. sales of more than $200 billion — larger than those of books, movies, and music combined. Everyone wears clothing and inevitably participates in fashion to some degree. Fashion is also a subject of periodically rediscovered fascination in virtually all the social sciences and the humanities. It has provided economic thought with a canonical example in theorizing about consumption and conformity. Social thinkers have long treated fashion as a window upon social class and social change. Cultural theorists have …

Paying For Delay: Pharmaceutical Patent Settlement As A Regulatory Design Problem, C. Scott Hemphill

Center for Contract and Economic Organization

Over the past decade, drug makers have settled patent litigation by making large payments to potential rivals who, in turn, abandon suits that (if successful) would increase competition. Because such "pay-for-delay" settlements postpone the possibility of competitive entry, they have attracted the attention of antitrust enforcement authorities, courts, and commentators. Pay-for-delay settlements not only constitute a problem of immense practical importance in antitrust enforcement, but also pose a general dilemma about the proper balance between innovation and consumer access.

This Article examines the pay-for-delay dilemma as a problem in regulatory design. A full analysis of the relevant industry-specific regulatory statute, …