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posted by Fnord666 on Monday September 11 2017, @10:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the clever-lawyers dept.

Dr. Lowe has scary patent news. Allergan's patent on Restasis is being questioned in court.

Last December, the US Patent Office granted an inter partes review of the relevant patents, a decision that did not go down well with Allergan or its investors. That form of patent review has been around since 2011 and the America Invents Act, and its purpose is specifically for prior art objections to a granted patent.

Looks bad for Allergan, but then they got sneaky. They transferred the patent rights to St. Regis Mohawk Indian Nation. Why? The Indian Nation is a sovereign nation, and our patent laws don't apply to them.

Scary stuff.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday September 11 2017, @10:55PM (3 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday September 11 2017, @10:55PM (#566458)

    From the article:

    “The validity of your patents is subject to review, unless you pay off some Indian tribe” does not seem like a good way to run an intellectual property system.

    Corporations have been pulling slimy tricks like this for ages, East Texas comes to mind. There's not much difference between paying some Indian tribe off and filing cases in East Texas.

    IANAL but it looks to me that the whole patent system is set up so that those with the deepest pockets get what they want.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by RS3 on Tuesday September 12 2017, @01:22AM (2 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Tuesday September 12 2017, @01:22AM (#566494)

    IANAL but it looks to me that the whole patent system is set up so that those with the deepest pockets get what they want.

    FTFY

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @01:10PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @01:10PM (#566708)

      ok so which political party can we blame? I want to make sure I make condescending comments about the wrong side before anyone else does.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @02:41PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @02:41PM (#566750)

        ok so which political party can we blame?

        yes