Tag: Intellectual Property Rights

FRAND Terms for Pandemic-essential Intellectual Property Rights

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

This post was originally published on the Verfassungsblog as part of our joint symposium on international pandemic lawmaking.

By Kaat Van Delm

Our international norms are arguably ill adapted to emergencies such as pandemics. In this contribution I discuss a potential remedy for one related challenge, namely, cooperation amongst competitors for the accelerated development of vaccines. A way to foster cooperation could be the use of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) terms to the licensing of pandemic-essential intellectual property rights (IPR). Specifically, states could make participation in public procurement for vaccines by pharmaceutical companies conditional upon accepting FRAND terms for their IPR relevant for vaccine development. I do not suggest changes to the existing rules for allocation of IPR. Rather, I attempt to explore an acceptable limitation of such rights in case of a pandemic. 

Transposing the concept of FRAND terms from standardization to the licensing of pandemic-essential IPR has potential because of the concept’s flexibility. FRAND terms do not require commitment to specific royalties in advance, therefore leaving room for considering new information such as the monetary value of the IPR concerned or the severity of the health crisis.

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Traditional countryside scene in the Netherlands with windbreak lane of poplar trees in the wind under summer sky. Ens, Flevoland Province, the Netherlands.

Q&A with Mason Marks on New Psychedelics Law and Regulation Initiative

Chloe Reichel Leave a comment

By Chloe Reichel

On June 30th, the Petrie-Flom Center announced the launch of a three-year research initiative, the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation (POPLAR), which is supported by a generous grant from the Saisei Foundation.

The Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School will advance evidence-based psychedelics law and policy.

In 2017, the FDA designated MDMA a breakthrough therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, and in 2018 the agency recognized psilocybin as a breakthrough therapy for treatment-resistant depression. These designations indicate that psychedelics may represent substantial improvements over existing treatments for mental health conditions. Many other psychedelics, including ibogaine, ketamine, and dimethyltryptamine, are the focus of ongoing psychiatric research and commercialization efforts.

Despite the proliferation of clinical research centers and increasing private investment in psychedelic drug development, there is a relative lack of research on the ethical, legal, and social implications of psychedelics research, commerce, and therapeutics.

In the following interview, which has been edited and condensed, Senior Fellow and POPLAR Project Lead Mason Marks explains how POPLAR will fill this gap, and previews some of the initiative’s topics of inquiry.

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Innovation and the Firm: Vertical Integration in Patent-Intensive Industries – Seminar 9/8 at the University of Copenhagen

Timo Minssen Leave a comment

Looking forward to hear Professor Peter Lee’s (UC Davis) talk on “Innovation and the Firm: Vertical Integration in Patent-Intensive Industries” at the University of Copenhagen on Friday, Friday, September 8th 2017 from 10:00 – 12:00. If you are interested to join, please register here.

Abstract of Professor Lee’s talk:

Recent scholarship has highlighted the prevalence of vertical disintegration in high-technology industries, whereby distinct, specialized entities along a value chain transfer intellectual assets between them. Patents play an important role in vertical disintegration, for they lower the cost of technology transactions between upstream suppliers and downstream users.

This presentation, however, draws on empirical accounts to explore the peculiar persistence of vertical integration in patent-intensive fields. In biopharmaceuticals, agricultural biotechnology, and information technology, firms are increasingly acquiring technology providers rather than simply licensing their patents. This dynamic is even evident to a certain extent in university-industry technology transfer, where universities and commercializing firms frequently engage in institutional meshing to transfer patented technologies. Read More