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Congress Will Investigate Drug Company That Gave Its Patents to Mohawk Tribe

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday October 05 2017, @04:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the three-card-monte dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Members of Congress want answers about a multinational drug company's deal to save its patents by handing them off to a Native American tribe.

Last month, Allergan gave the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe six patents that protect Restasis, the company's blockbuster eye drug. The goal is a sophisticated legal strategy to avoid having the US Patent Office proceed with a process called inter partes review, which is a kind of quasi-litigation in which opponents of a patent can try to have them revoked. Lawyers for Allergan are hoping that the principle of sovereign immunity, in which Native American tribes are treated as sovereign nations in certain ways, will protect their patents from government review.

The strategy may well succeed. IPR proceedings against patents held by public universities have been canceled on at least two occasions, when the Patent Trial and Appeals Board held that the universities benefit from sovereign immunity because they are state actors. The St. Regis Mohawk tribe will be paid an annual royalty of $15 million as long as the patents are valid.

The move is a legal maneuver to avoid challenges to their patent.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/congress-will-investigate-drug-company-that-gave-its-patents-to-mohawk-tribe/

takyon: Allergan.

Previously: Allergan Pulls a Fast One

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday October 05 2017, @08:37PM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday October 05 2017, @08:37PM (#577621)

    I'm hoping they use at least 32-bit integers in the code, if we start being allowed to rate posts as "Cynical"...

    Maybe-future-feature question (to TMB, as usual): What about listing all the mods a comment gets, rather than whatever fancy algorithm currently decides the sum of Funny+Insightful+Touche+troll to be? I've got a very wide browser window, so I wouldn't mind a long title showing all the types of mods some comments get.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:34PM (#577649)

    It would be nice, maybe a show/hide button. Clicking the comment ID to load a new page just to see moderation history is kinda lame.

    @bob, I'm pretty sure the fancy algorithm is a complex combination of plus and minus. +5 interesting, that's a mighty big minus isn't it?