USPTO has just published its new estimates of “IP-intensive” jobs for the US economy. The report is titled: Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: 2016 Update, and is available as a PDF file here. USPTO press release here:
I took a quick look at the report, and below are some initial bullet points:
I wanted to post a brief note about three separate mechanism to overcome patent monopolies in current US law. All are useful, in the right context, and all have some limits.
1. The Bayh-Dole March-In rights under 35 U.S.C. 203, as defined by 35 U.S.C. 201(f).
On September 10, 2015, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), wrote to USTR expressing alarm at the European Union support of an indefinite extension of a WTO waiver of obligations to grant patents on pharmaceuticals for UN defined least developed countries (LDCs). In 2015, there were 954 million persons living in LDCs, with a per capita income of $964, according to the World Bank. The EU had aligned itself with health advocates trying to protect the bottom billion access to life saving medicines.
Knowledge Ecology International recently obtained extensive email correspondence between officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), and the National Football League (NFL), which shed light on accusations of NFL attempts to control the NIH research agenda related to repeat concussion injuries in football players.
The records, which we received through FOIA, are available here:
The National Institutes of Health, from 2011 through May of 2015, appears to have granted all requests for waivers of a requirement under federal law that patent holders who benefit from U.S. taxpayer-funding ensure that their patented inventions are manufactured in the United States.
The Bayh-Dole Act imposes various requirements on the grant of exclusive licenses by the patent holders of federally-funded inventions. In particular, the act generally requires that exclusive licensees “substantially” manufacture the invention in the United States.
The Act, however, also allows for the patent holder to obtain a waiver on the U.S. manufacturing requirement from the Federal agency that provided for the funding of the invention. According to a FOIA response recently obtained by Knowledge Ecology International, the NIH seems to grant every manufacturing waiver request that comes its way. Continue Reading
On September 14, 2016, the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines released its report, in which they had a mandate to “review and assess proposals and recommend solutions for remedying the policy incoherence between the justifiable rights of inventors, international human rights law, trade rules and public health in the context of health technologies.”[1]
On September 14, 2016, the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines issued its long-awaited report, which addressed the policy incoherencies between intellectual property, trade, human rights, innovation, and public health.
The report is available here: http://www.unsgaccessmeds.org/final-report/
Continue Reading
On September 7, 2016, the National Cancer Advisory Board Blue Ribbon Panel issued a draft report with recommendations directed to the Cancer Moonshot Task Force.
The draft included 10 interesting and useful recommendations (see A – J) related to cancer research, but none to address the pricing or affordability of products. Continue Reading
A German patent court has ordered a compulsory license under Section 24 of the Patent Act, allowing Merck (US) to continue to market the HIV drug raltegravir (marketed as Isentress).
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has published a factsheet presenting, “Hillary’s Plan to Respond to Unjustified Price Hikes for Long-Available Drugs.”
Today via Twitter, KEI Director James Love offered a six point commentary on Secretary Clinton’s proposal to address drug price hikes: