Rent Check
A ruling in Google v. Oracle may come down tomorrow, and many in non-computer copyright-centered industries (think photography, film, literature, etc.) are concerned that a ruling in Google’s favor based on fair use will contribute to “fair use creep”. I argue the only way to prevent this outcome in the case of a Google win is for Google to prevail because APIs aren’t eligible for copyright protection.
News and Commentary
In The Hill, I make the case that knowledge and technology transfer necessary to manufacture vaccines should be viewed as a foreign policy opportunity–where the United States could claim credit for vaccinating the world (or, more accurately, helping the world vaccinate itself) and refill the reservoir of goodwill which has been running on empty for the past decades.
A new analysis from VoxEU examines the antitrust implications of the prescription drug market. It finds that while mergers between two medium-sized companies may be beneficial if there is one dominant firm, if the dominant firm’s drugs are about to go off-patent this merger would be problematic.
Writing for Research Enterprise, Gerald Barnett highlights two major problems associated with the current discourse on the Bayh-Dole Act. First, he makes it clear that federal contractors are under no obligation to receive a patent for their invention (nor is anyone else for that matter), and how universities claim patent rights under the Act which they do not have under a plain reading of the text.
In Salon, Matthew Rozsa writes about how wealthier countries have capitalized on current intellectual property laws to prevent foreign generic manufacturers from mass-producing COVID-19 treatments and cures, just as they did during the 1990s and 2000s during the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The Internet Archive’s Chris Freeland hosted an event discussing the operations of the Open Library, debunking a few myths claiming that the Open Library is piracy along the way.
New Research
A new paper from the Journal of Generic Medicines finds that after patent expiration, the composite quantity sales may decline (though not uniformly) due to factor which may be independent from the patent expiration.
New research finds that when firms believe that the benefits of their research will be used more by rivals than by their own internal operations and they become more sensitive to rivals using their R&D, they spend less on it.
New research finds that one of the key drivers for R&D in the COVID-19 pandemic on treatments and cures was government-funded research and recommends further studies on the broader range of incentives to produce research.
A new paper from the South Centre examines the wide range of compulsory licensing tools available to share technology with countries around the world.
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