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BLOG@IP::JURPatent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.
Monday, June 18, 2007U.S.: Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards Promising to "Remove" Drug Patents.During electoral campaigns politicians love to make popular, if not populist pledges to their electorate. The upcoming campaigns for the U.S. presidential election in 2008 appear to be no exception:"[...] DETROIT - Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards wants to reduce the cost of U.S. health care by removing patents for breakthrough drugs and requiring health insurance companies to spend at least 85 percent of their premiums on patient care. [...]"Read  more ...I do not have any idea as to whether such plan just to "remove" some patents by federal legislation would go well with the provisions of the U.S. constitution. In Germany, the title given to the patent owner by granting a patent is protected by the German constitution very much like property from which the owner can be evicted only under very limited circumstances. Technorati Tags:  Patents
I think the Constitution should be OK with Edwards making use of the march-in rights granted by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. That act specifies that if the U.S. government has contributed public money to research that leads to a patent, then the U.S. government has a right to ensure that that patent leads to improved public welfare. The rights are broad, and include rules about reasonable pricing of drugs produced under federally-funded patents. We only have a short article repeating sound bites from a politician, but I imagine that Senator Edwards is referring to these march-in rights, which could easily include compulsory licensing of a drug patent to generic manufacturers.
Read the US-constitution. It grants Congress the right to install a federal patent system to promote the sciences and the arts. It does not say that Congress has to grant patent protection at all.  # posted by : 25 June, 2007 04:33Post a Comment
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