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Balancing Mickey Mouse and the Mutant Copyright: To Copyright a Trademark or to Trademark a Copyright, That is the Question
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Gene Patents, Drug Prices, and Scientific Research: Unexpected Effects of Recently Proposed Patent Eligibility Legislation
Get PDFRecently, Congress has considered legislation to amend § 101, a section of the Patent Act that the Supreme Court has held to prohibit patenting of laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas. This draft legislation would expand the realm of patent-eligible subject matter, overturning the Court’s precedents along the way. The draft legislation, and movement to change this doctrine of patent law, made substantial headway with a subcommittee of the Senate holding numerous roundtables and hearings on the subject.
This article considers some less-discussed consequences of that draft leg- islative proposal. The legislation likely opens the door to patenting of subject matter such as human genes and scientific discoveries, given its broad lan- guage and abrogation of precedent. Allowing such patents would have conse- quential effects such as potentially raising drug prices, decreasing quality of health care, deterring scientific research, slowing the development of innova- tive technologies, and conflicting with scientific and ethical norms. Considerations such as these ought to be top-of-mind for legislators intending to change the law of patentable subject matter eligibility
Is the Constitution’s Convention for Proposing Amendments a “Mystery”? Overlooked Evidence in the Narrative of Uncertainty
Get PDFSince the 1960s, leading academics and other commentators have claimed that the composition and protocols of the Constitution’s “Convention for proposing Amendments” are unknowable, subject to congressional control, or both. Today those claims are on a collision course with growing public sentiment for an amendments convention to address federal dysfunction
