For as long as I’ve been writing on this website, I’ve argued that the U.S. economy has become little more than a gigantic rent-seeking swindle where much of the wealth being “created” isn’t being created at all. Rather, money is being shuffled around and extracted from the population at large via increasingly elaborate and preposterous schemes. Indeed, it appears much of the nation’s creative energy is being directed at discovering new corporate scams, versus the invention of new goods and services that benefit everyone.
For the latest scheme we turn, unsurprisingly, to the pharmaceutical industry and Allergan in particular. The ploy was revealed by The New York Times last week, and its pretty grotesque.
What follows are excerpts from the article, How to Protect a Drug Patent? Give it to a Native American Tribe:
The drugmaker Allergan announced Friday that it had transferred its patents on a best-selling eye drug to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe in upstate New York — an unusual gambit to protect the drug from a patent dispute.
Under the deal, which involves the dry-eye drug Restasis, Allergan will pay the tribe $13.75 million. In exchange, the tribe will claim sovereign immunity as grounds to dismiss a patent challenge through a unit of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The tribe will lease the patents back to Allergan, and will receive $15 million in annual royalties as long as the patents remain valid.
The surprising legal move rippled quickly through the pharmaceutical world on Friday, setting off speculation about whether other drug companies would soon follow suit in order to protect their patents from challenges through a patent-review process that the industry despises.
If Allergan succeeds in holding onto its patents, “we will probably see multiple branded companies housing their patents with Indian tribes,” Ronny Gal, an analyst for Bernstein, said in a video message to investors on Friday.
Mr. White said the tribe was approached in April by a Dallas law firm, Shore Chan DePumpo, which proposed the idea. The tribe has already taken ownership of patents owned by a technology company that Mr. White declined to name, but said the Allergan arrangement is the tribe’s first pharmaceutical deal.Denise Bradley, a spokeswoman for Teva Pharmceuticals, one of the generic companies that is challenging the Restasis patents, described the deal as “a new and unusual way for a company to try to delay access to high-quality and affordable generic alternatives.” She added that Teva “will be interested to see what comments are made about this tactic by regulatory agencies.”
Mr. White said the tribe has entered into an agreement with Shore Chan DePumpo, which will vet companies and their patents before referring them to the Saint Regis tribe. “Indian tribes have sovereignty that is stronger than states,” Mr. White said, pointing to recent Supreme Court cases that have ruled in favor of tribes. “We feel that we have an extremely strong case.”
Michael Carrier, a professor at Rutgers Law School who studies patent law, called the announcement Friday a “concerning” development, in part because the Mohawk tribe played no role in developing the drug. And he said the administrative-review panel served a worthy purpose. “Challenges at the patent office play a crucial role in overturning invalid patents, and that role could be undermined by agreements like this,” Mr. Carrier said.
But remember. America is already great.
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“Indian tribes have sovereignty that is stronger than states”–Thanks a bunch, Mr. Lincoln.
Very simply…it’s time to consider leaving this country. Really. Or….grow a militia with backbone and weapons to take out all the corruption. And a backup plan for future corruption that will always arise. Until the American people wake-up this will always be the most corrupt place in world history.
These cons are running out of marks to hustle.
Perhaps they should stick to the icecaps. I hear they are ripe.
Or perhaps some easily bribed warlords in orbit.
Lots of investment dynamics.
New York: we cannot implement efficient solutions because of our debt
http://www.translate.ru/siteTranslation/autolink/?direction=au-en&template=auto&sourceURL=https://ria.ru/politics/20170914/1504802287.html
Ah the great forked tongue attorneys who’s job it is to use statutory laws to create ever greater fraud against the people, thank you so much for you unscrupulous hearts, f#cking douchebags, Jesus was so right about these guys!
RICO laws seem relevant as a solution. Indian tribes are NOT sovereign any more than states are sovereign…they all bow to the federal government.
This is all the same thing we the majority are being ripped off used as test subjects and as the bible says oppressed and this will continue until it’s all over, however I wouldn’t want to be one of group fostoying every thing for their gain cause their eternity is going to really suck.
I believe Jesus spoke about God’s opposite…”Mammon”… the Aramaic word for wealth. It is wealth that hires the attorneys and buys the legislators who pass the desired laws. Wealth is the enemy of … God.
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
But wealth is not the enemy of God. Wealth is the enemy of the wealthy person who allows their wealth to own them.
“The more you have, the less you own.” – Meister Eckhart
The unholy alliance between Big Pharma, the FDA, and the AMA, has killed more people over the past 40 years than it has cured.
A perfect example.
For those of you who take statin drugs for high or “elevated” cholesterol, or have family members who do, get the hell off of them ASAP. My elderly mother has Dementia as a result of being on them for years. Over prescribing statin drugs, as opposed to just instructing patients to change their eating habits, is one of the primary causes of the huge increase in Dementia in the US population.
The other major cause is aspartame, also known as NutraSweet.
There are many more examples. The rent-seekers completely control modern western medicine, now. Which is why they’ve waged war against Holistic medicine for years in order to protect their turf.
Hippocratic oath, my ass.
Genaro, we want to add to your rant. We are a student of the thought projection devices as written about by Delamer Duverus in “The Next Voice You Hear.” It may still be on the educate-yourself website. Anyway, it was Thomas Edison who invented a receiving device much like a radio, but it was picking up on the voices of those who had died, or so he thought. The dead do not have a brain with which to transmit thoughts, so he was really picking up on thoughts of the living.
After his death, the device was not heard of again but Delamer Duverus wrote how they had turned the device around to become a transmitter of thoughts and he related many experiences he came into contact with about how it was used against people to make them do things or think things or say things they wouldn’t ordinarily do or say. “Going Postal” may have been about this transmitter.
We have also had many experiences with this device because they project during the night and we pick them up in our dreams. The most memorable was when we dreamt of Papa Pres. Bush and how we really didn’t want him in office any longer. We dreamed this same dream three mornings in a row. We didn’t like Papa Bush, or is that Poppy Bush, but why would we dream about him. That was a weekend. The following Friday the banner headlines in our local newspaper said, “Bush down in the polls.” That was a thought projection.
Anyway, about three years ago my husband and I started to have hot flashes, for no apparent reason. It wasn’t soon after that a new drug for hot flashes came on the market. Coincidence? We wonder. When we read about Allergan’s new dry eye medicine, we had the same aha moment, for we have had dry eyes for the last several weeks for no apparent reason.
Is this about create a need and then fill it. We are wondering if the opioid epidemic is caused by projection of pain, for we know that an empath can project pain to someone, so why couldn’t they use thought projection to do the same?
What a bunch of slime creatures!
Jennifer, thanks. Yes I am familiar with Delamer Duverus. BTW, the receiving device you’re referring to was created by Tesla when he worked for Edison. After Tesla left Edison’s employ he further developed that device as well as other similar devices.Which was one of the primary reasons the Feds stole all of Tesla’s files immediately after he died.
Intellectually speaking, Tesla towered over Edison. But Edison was a far superior businessman.
It is “Pappy” Bush.
This is the third time trying this, it might be good to read Makia Freeman’s article, “insider exposes how you and your dna are being targeted. More about thought projection technology.
Thanks, Genaro, didn’t realize it was Tesla’s invention. Mentor had read about the invention in some magazine like Life or Collier’s and think they only credited Edison.
We use Poppy, because we think Sr. was involved with drugs during CIA.
Michael,
I suggest you look further into the issue of what Allergen is actually doing by selling its patents to the tribe and licensing them back. It is NOT avoiding ANY challenges to its patent validity in federal court. (In fact, it is currently awaiting a decision in federal court (Eastern District of Texas) regarding the validity and infringement of its patents!). Instead….it is ONLY avoiding CURRENT & PARALLEL challenges to its patent validity in the KANGAROO administrative court that the America Invents Act set up in 2011…..an extremely biased tribunal procedure which is unlikely to pass U.S. Constitutional muster by next Spring as the Supreme Court has already accepted the Oil States case challenging the Inter Parte Review (IPR) process on two separate grounds.
At the PTAB ‘court’ set up, burdens of proof regarding invalidation are significantly reduced, claim construction is significantly different than in federal courts, the judges are appointed by the PTO Director (who can and HAS ADMITTED to packing specific PTAB panels to reach the decision they wanted), and many standard due process rights of patent owners are nullified in the interest of speed (rather than justice)…such as the right to trial by jury, full discovery, etc.. In addition, once a IPR is accepted by the PTO, most federal infringement cases are halted….essentially handing off the validity issue to the PTO…a politically drive body which the Obama administration made the exclusive playground of former (patent infringement fearing) Google alunmi like Michelle Lee.
I don’t have any beef with people challenging Allergen’s patents in federal court and this maneuver won’t prevent it…but I applaud Allergen’s innovative way of avoiding the UNJUST procedures set up by an corporate-owned Congress and a corrupt and bias executive agency to kill patent values in this county…..not just for drug companies but for ANY innovator who manages to earn a patent on their innovation.
I understand that there is a strong libertarian streak in much of your writing (which I agree with) and patents run counter to many contemporary view of libertarian-ism ….but I am a strong believer in having a strong patent system and strong property rights…which the PTAB undermines tremendously.
You are dead on about the PTAB, Obama, and Michelle Lee.
“U.S. economy has become little more than a gigantic rent-seeking swindle” all I can say is the truth hurts.
I agree 100% with what valuation guy has said. Our patent system was set up by people like Ben Franklin to favor creative and inventive people. A inventor goes through a lot of time money and energy to invent sonething. The huge cost would not be worth the effort if it wasnt for the strong patent system we had. For hundreds of years it was the strongest patent system in the world and americans enjoyed the benefits. I am one of those independent inventors myself. Edison tried 1000 different filaments before getting a light bulb to stay lit for a long period of time.
Obama worked hard to weaken our patent system and favor big corperations who profit from keeping everything the same. Every home depot, cvs, Wal-Mart and wells fargo branch are the exact same as the next from city to city. The corpwrations are creating a 1984 culture of control. Harmonization in our patent system is going to destroy the quality of life for future generations.
Our country was built on a solid foundation of democracy. Right now we are being devoured by termites called plutocrats controlled by big corperations.
It is time to tear down the wooden struture of our country because the termite infestation is uncontrollable. The good news is we can leave the strong concrete foundation of our country and democracy in place.
You seem to think USA patent system worked good for small inventors before Obama.
But do you remember the history of FM radio and RCA ?