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Native American Tribe Can't Be a 'Sovereign' Shield During Patent Review, Says Court (arstechnica.com)
Cyrus Farivar writes via Ars Technica: In a unanimous decision, an appellate court has resoundingly rejected the legal claim that sovereign immunity, as argued by a Native American tribe, can act as a shield for a patent review process. On July 20, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found in a 3-0 decision that the inter partes review (IPR) process (a process that allows anyone to challenge a patent's validity at the United States Patent and Trademark Office) is closer to an "agency enforcement action" -- like a complaint brought by the FTC or the FCC -- than a regular lawsuit.
This case really began in September 2015. That was when Allergan, a pharma company, sued rival Mylan, claiming that Mylan's generics infringed on Allergan's dry eye treatment known as Restasis. Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe was initially filed in the Eastern District of Texas, known as a judicial region that is particularly friendly to entities that are often dubbed patent trolls. By 2016, Mylan initiated the IPR. But Allergan, in an attempt to stave it off, struck a strange deal, transferring ownership of the six Restasis-related patents to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, based in Upstate New York, near the Canadian border. As part of that deal, Allergan paid $13.75 million to the tribe, with a promise of $15 million in annual payments -- if the patents were upheld, that is. The Mohawk Tribe attempted to end the IPR, citing sovereign immunity, which was denied. The tribe struck at least one other similar deal with a firm known as SRC Labs, which sued Amazon and Microsoft.
This case really began in September 2015. That was when Allergan, a pharma company, sued rival Mylan, claiming that Mylan's generics infringed on Allergan's dry eye treatment known as Restasis. Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe was initially filed in the Eastern District of Texas, known as a judicial region that is particularly friendly to entities that are often dubbed patent trolls. By 2016, Mylan initiated the IPR. But Allergan, in an attempt to stave it off, struck a strange deal, transferring ownership of the six Restasis-related patents to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, based in Upstate New York, near the Canadian border. As part of that deal, Allergan paid $13.75 million to the tribe, with a promise of $15 million in annual payments -- if the patents were upheld, that is. The Mohawk Tribe attempted to end the IPR, citing sovereign immunity, which was denied. The tribe struck at least one other similar deal with a firm known as SRC Labs, which sued Amazon and Microsoft.
What I understood is that a pharmaceutical company has some bogus patents and in order to avoid having them voided transferred them to a native American tribe so they can claim so ereign immunity.
Which doesn't make any sense at all to me, a US patent is itself valid or not, how can it matter who it belongs to. So if I understood correctly the decision seems right and rather obvious. Then again you never know with the judicial system...
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the drug companies were trying to find a way to be exempt from law
And this surprises you somehow? Sounds like business as usual to me.
I find it appalling the length companies will go to undermine the rule of law.
It should be appalling. Yet we have an entire major political party which spends considerable energy towards eliminating regulations that prohibit companies from doing just that.
The US culture of profit at any cost and loss of morality is disheartening.
US culture is hardly alone in an over enthusiasm for profits and damn the consequences. And not everyone in the US is on board with profit at any cost. Just enough people to make it a real problem. That said, a profit motive is a useful thing, provided it is adequately constrained with rules to keep things reasonably fair and in the public interest. It's only a problem when we start pretending that free markets and profit motives will actually solve the problems caused by failed free markets and unchecked profit motives.
We probably should have force them to assimilate thoroughly , it would have been less troublesome today.
Sure, we told the that their reservations were sovereign territory
That's just a convenient fiction to make everyone involved feel better. They have no monetary system, no independent economy, no military, no ability to maintain relations with other nations, and no control over their borders. The idea that they're "sovereign" in any meaningful sense of the word is absurd. At best they're a "sovereign state" in the same way that Texas or California are; able to pass and enforce laws within their own territory, but subject to most of the same federal regulations as any other state.