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Blatant Discrimination Within Federal Law: A 14th Amendment Analysis Of Medicaid’S Imd Exclusion, J. Michael E. Gray, Madeline Easdale
Blatant Discrimination Within Federal Law: A 14th Amendment Analysis Of Medicaid’S Imd Exclusion, J. Michael E. Gray, Madeline Easdale
University of Massachusetts Law Review
A discriminatory piece of Medicaid law, the institution for mental diseases (IMD) exclusion, is denying people with serious mental illness equal levels of treatment as those with only primary healthcare needs. The IMD exclusion denies the use of federal funding in psychiatric hospitals for inpatient care. This article discusses the history and collateral implications of the IMD exclusion, then examines it through the lens of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, argues that people with severe mental illness constitute a quasi-suspect class, and that application of intermediate scrutiny would render the IMD exclusion unenforceable.
Determining What’S Not Obvious: Should A Reasonable Expectation Of Success Invalidate Patent Applications?, Natalie Peters
Determining What’S Not Obvious: Should A Reasonable Expectation Of Success Invalidate Patent Applications?, Natalie Peters
University of Massachusetts Law Review
Patents are necessary to incentivize innovation because they grant owners the right to protect inventions. To be patentable, an invention must be useful, it must be novel, and it must not be obvious. But the judiciary has struggled to apply the latter requirement, non-obviousness, particularly for highly technical innovations subject to FDA regulations. For these innovations, the progression through the regulatory jungle can take ten to twenty years and millions of dollars (2.6 billion for a pharmaceutical drug). The complexities of the regulatory process can also render an innovation unprotected by patent rights because, by the end of the process, …