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Full-Text Articles in Law and Economics
Rescuing Access To Patented Essential Medicines: Pharmaceutical Companies As Tortfeasors Under The Prevented Rescue Tort Theory, Richard Cameron Gower
Rescuing Access To Patented Essential Medicines: Pharmaceutical Companies As Tortfeasors Under The Prevented Rescue Tort Theory, Richard Cameron Gower
Richard Cameron Gower
Despite some difficulties, state tort law can be argued to create a unique exception to patent law. Specifically, the prevented rescue doctrine suggests that charities and others can circumvent patents on certain critical medications when such actions are necessary to save individuals from death or serious harm. Although this Article finds that the prevented rescue tort doctrines is preempted by federal patent law, all hope is not lost. A federal substantive due process claim may be brought that uses the common law to demonstrate a fundamental right that has long been protected by our Nation’s legal traditions. Moreover, this Article …
Intellectual Property As An ‘Investment’ In International Law: A Question Of Access To Medicines Vs Access To Justice, Christopher Wadlow
Intellectual Property As An ‘Investment’ In International Law: A Question Of Access To Medicines Vs Access To Justice, Christopher Wadlow
Christopher Wadlow
No abstract provided.
The Great Pharmaceutical Patent Robbery, And The Curious Case Of The Chemical Foundation, Christopher Wadlow
The Great Pharmaceutical Patent Robbery, And The Curious Case Of The Chemical Foundation, Christopher Wadlow
Christopher Wadlow
In 1918, the United States confiscated virtually all German-owned intellectual property assets within its jurisdiction. Out of 6,000 patents in the chemical field, 4,500 were assigned for a very modest consideration to an newly-established entity, the Chemical Foundation, which was incorporated with the objective of licensing and managing them for the benefit of the United States chemical industry. This article describes the origins and activities of the Chemical Foundation, and considers whether it provides a useful model, or at least useful lessons, for the collective management of patents today.
Of Mice And Men: Why An Anticommons Has Not Emerged In The Biotechnological Realm, Chester J. Shiu
Of Mice And Men: Why An Anticommons Has Not Emerged In The Biotechnological Realm, Chester J. Shiu
Chester J Shiu
In 1998 Michael Heller and Rebecca Eisenberg posited that excessive patenting of fundamental biomedical innovations might create a “tragedy of the anticommons.” A decade later, their dire predictions have not come to pass, an outcome which calls much of the legal scholarship on the topic into question. This Article proposes that legal commentators’ theoretical arguments have largely ignored two very important factors. First, the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—the single most important actor in the biomedical research industry—has played an active role in keeping the biomedical research domain open. In particular, regardless of what the current patent regime may theoretically …