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A U.S. Senator is seeking to close the patent loophole used by the pharmaceutical company Allergan:
Allergan's move to stop its patents from being reviewed by handing them off to a Native American tribe is winning support from few people outside the drug company. Now one lawmaker is seeking to ban it.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) has introduced a bill (PDF) that would head off Allergan's strategy without waiting to see whether the judges at the Patent Trial and Appeals Board will even approve it. "This is one of the most brazen and absurd loopholes I've ever seen, and it should be illegal," McCaskill said last week in a statement to a pharmaceutical lobby group.
The Native American patent shelter, promoted by Allergan's outside law firm, seeks to avoid the process of "inter partes review," or IPR, for the patents protecting the blockbuster drug Restasis. The IPR process is a kind of quasi-litigation that takes place at the Patent Trial and Appeals Board for the sole purpose of determining whether a patent is valid or not. Now that the Restasis patents are owned by the St. Regis Mohawk tribe and licensed back to Allergan, the drug company's lawyers have asked for an impending IPR to be dismissed. The tribe argues that it's protected from IPRs by "sovereign immunity."
Previously: Allergan Pulls a Fast One
Congress Will Investigate Drug Company That Gave Its Patents to Mohawk Tribe
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday October 11 2017, @09:41AM (5 children)
The current situation is just a mess. Whenever a tribe doesn't feel like obeying US laws, they claim sovereignty. But whenever they want something - usually free federal help or programs or money - suddenly they are poor, helpless victims, yet another branch of the FSA.
Congress really needs to change the law: either the tribes are sovereign, or not. Pick one. If they are sovereign, then they are entirely responsible for themselves. If not, then they are just counties in the states where they are located, and their residents have the same rights, privileges and responsibilities as everyone else.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @11:01AM
Or you could just get some rednecks to finish the job and wipe them out like Christopher Columbus intended.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday October 11 2017, @11:20AM (1 child)
The current situation is just a mess. Whenever a state doesn't feel like obeying federal laws, they claim sovereignty. But whenever they want something - usually free lands, mineral rights or regulatory protections - suddenly they are poor, helpless victims, yet another branch of the FSA.
Feels familiar? The real problem is that the US government doesn't want to acknowledge native reservations as federated states for gerrymandering purposes and won't reform and fix the laws and constitution to plug the million and one holes it accumulated over 400 years of technological advancement and spaghetti code. So, every other day you hear about one exploit or the next being exploited to let the rich get richer and the poor, poorer. And the only times something gets done quickly is when money ends up in the hands of the "wrong people".
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @03:10PM
It used the US Government as its role model for its software development practices :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @05:51PM (1 child)
If they're properly sovereign they'll probably want their nation back, you can't have it both ways. Be greatful they don't give your blankets back.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday October 11 2017, @06:19PM
> Be greatful they don't give your blankets back.
They've been playing the long game: waiting for Trump to eliminate mandatory vaccination first.