The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released a Notice on the Federal Register (“the Notice”) today requesting public commentary and input on the current state of the experimental use exception. The USPTO is...more
On November 6, 2023 I submitted a response to the public comments which can be found here. I have also included my comments in full on this blog in a series of posts including the below. The only change in my submission is...more
On April 26th, Ambassador Katherine Tai, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), issued the 2023 Special 301 Report. In a press release, the USTR stated that "[i]nnovation and creativity are at the heart of American...more
On 27 April 2023, the European Commission (the Commission) published its Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on compulsory licensing for crisis management (the Proposed Compulsory Licensing...more
On February 1, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a "zero draft" of a WHO convention, agreement, or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (or "WHO CA+") for the...more
Key Points - On December 6, days before a deadline for WTO members to decide whether to expand the TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 vaccines to cover COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics as well, the Office of the USTR...more
It is often observed (or asserted) that a fair compromise in a dispute has likely been reached when both sides are not particularly happy about it. This is not always the case, of course, and is more likely not to be the...more
Earlier this month, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to members of Congress indicating that the Chamber "strongly supports" recent House and Senate legislation that the Chamber noted "would prohibit the...more
The Russian war on Ukraine has resulted in a series of US sanctions and Russian countermeasures that have disrupted the coordination of patent and trademark rights between the United States and Russia. ...more
As posted Monday, BIO (the Biotechnology Innovation Organization) provided a link to the supposed compromise agreement reached recently to permit WTO member states to waive patent protection for "subject matter required for...more
In this new episode of OnAir: Health Care, Akin Gump health care senior policy advisor Matthew Hittle and consultant Dr. Mario Ramirez welcome Akin Gump public law and policy partner Clete Willems and Centrient...more
Over a year after the world shut down from the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel that is a return to normalcy. Unfortunately, other countries are still deep in the...more
Earlier this month, United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced "the Biden-Harris Administration's support for waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines." One day prior to Ambassador...more
While the details of the WTO patent waiver have not been determined (or more properly negotiated), it is important to consider the structure of the international trade regime in which the waiver will operate and the...more
And everybody knows that suspending patent rights is necessary to provide sufficient vaccine to stem the global pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus known as COVID-19. It is always a sign of intellectual weakness and pack...more
One year ago today, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a pandemic. At the time of the announcement, the WHO noted that there were 118,000 cases reported globally,...more
On October 2, 2020, India and South Africa urged the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council to temporarily waive the obligation of member states under the TRIPS...more
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012), which was hailed by some as banning patents on methods of medical diagnosis. It...more
The Situation: Following the U.S. withdrawal from the original Trans-Pacific Partnership ("TPP") agreement last year, the 11 remaining TPP countries agreed to implement the original text in a new "TPP-11" agreement. However,...more
The Accelerating Rate of Commerce - Classical intellectual property protection, such as trademarks, copyrights and patents often require the filing of costly applications with government offices, long delays of review and...more
Very few topics in international intellectual property have been as controversial as compulsory licenses. While the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) sets minimum standards for...more
March-in rights in the US were created in 1980, as part of the Bayh-Dole Act. Simply stated, when the US government funds research that results in patents, it obtains rights to those patents. These rights are retained even...more
March-in Rights and Compulsory Licensing of Biopharmaceutical Inventions - Very few topics in international intellectual property have been as controversial as compulsory licensing. In the US, consumer groups have...more
On July 17, 2017, the United States Trade Representative released the summary of its objectives for NAFTA renegotiation, including its objectives for the intellectual property and competition provisions of the agreement. As...more
Concerns about trade secret theft have been increasing in both the United States and Europe in recent years. Traditionally, American law disfavored trade secret protection vis à vis patenting on the basis that publication of...more