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iwfal

02/28/13 8:23 AM

#157635 RE: zipjet #157634

MNTA

The court was lost in the weeds.

From a policy standpoint, the safe harbor makes sense as a way of shortening the time gap between drug approval and marketing the drug without eviscerating the patent. It allows the patent its full value without granting additional years of protection caused by the FDA time line.



As I've noted before - the appeals courts have a long history (100+ years) of, somewhat erratically, writing decisions that devalue the concept of IP. What I coined long ago as "IP Communism" as a way to crisply describe the mindset. Over that same time period my impression of the the USSC decisions is that they have been more consistent and more aware of the value in IP.

I don't know if it is about who gets the job, or something more structural. I suspect some of both.