Article in IPT for February 2005
Posted on May 11, 2008 in Generic pharmaceuticals
An article entitled THE IMPACT OF WORLD WAR I ON PRESENT DAY PATENT ISSUES for publication in the February 2005 issue of Intellectual Property Today discusses points about Merck v. Integra. Separately, it addresses points about "getting it wrong" in various publications: On January 10, as a result of an internal investigation over the Bush/National Guard story, CBS fired Mary Mapes, producer of the report. Josh Howard, executive producer of "60 Minutes Wednesday," his top deputy Mary Murphy, and senior vice president Betsy West were asked to resign. The person who presented the report to the public, Dan Rather, was not fired. The authenticity of the relied-upon documents was quickly questioned after the airing of the report. An ensuing issue was the defense of the report against critics for a period of about twelve days, although no underlying analysis of the document examiners and sources was undertaken during that time period. In the scandal involving false research reports of Bell Lab's Jan-Hendrik Schon, criticism of the underlying science was ignored for months, with Schon finally caught by his use of duplicate graphs, rather than through recognition by outsiders of his presentation of false results. Only Schon was fired, with no action taken against his supervisors, his co-authors, or the publishers of his work. Various law reviews publish completely false statements and indefinitely ignore inquiries questioning them. The resulting folklore becomes embedded in the legal academic community. ***** Speaking of law reviews, many discuss the Merck v. Integra case. In 30 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 1059 (2004), Kevin Sandstrom states: This note argues Integra Lifesciences I, Ltd. v. Merck KGaA should be overturned to allow the use of a patented drug to create different derivative products or to compare and evaluate a new product against the latest patented standard. Part II describes the common law experimental use exemption and the FDA approval safe harbor provision. n11 Part III reviews the facts, holding, and dissent in Integra. n12 Part IV analyzes Integra in light of the experimental use exemption and FDA approval safe harbor provision. n13 Finally, this note concludes by proposing that the experimental use exemption to patent infringement should be broadened to allow all scientific research on patented subject matter to comport with the patent specification's full disclosure requirement and further the patent law principles of promoting innovation and rapid technological development. n14 In 2004 Wis. L. Rev. 81, Katherine J. Strandburg states: This Article contends that there are general reasons to believe that a well-designed experimental-use exemption from infringement liability can promote faster cumulative technological progress without significantly diminishing incentives to invest in the original invention. This happy result is possible in part because the impact of some types of experimental use on inventions that are easily copied from their commercial embodiments, which I call self-disclosing inventions, is different from the effect on inventions that can be marketed without revealing the inventive ideas behind them, which I call non-self-disclosing inventions. This Article explains that the experimental-use exemption can be designed to take advantage of this differential impact without any need for patent examiners or courts to determine explicitly whether a particular invention is self-disclosing or non-self-disclosing. (...) This Article supports Mueller's proposal [76 Wash. L. Rev. 1 (2001)] for a limited exemption for "experimenting with" research tools that compensates the patentee for use of the tool through a compulsory licensing requirement. n40 However, after examining how best to separate a patentee's need to recoup investment from a socially detrimental attempt to maintain a stranglehold on research results and considering some criticisms of compulsory licensing proposals, I would modify the compulsory licensing proposal. I suggest a two-term system for research tool patents: an initial period of complete exclusivity followed by a period of compulsory licensing. *** Rochelle Dreyfuss in 46 Ariz. L. Rev. 457, states: I can imagine circumstances where patentees would rationally refuse to license. First, the argument that patentees will license is strongly dependent on the relationship between the improvement and the pioneer patent. Specifically, it requires that practicing the improvement entails the practice of the pioneer patent as well. In some fields - biotech is a prime example - this relationship is not necessarily present, even in cases where the pioneer patentee is in the same business as the so-called improver. While the patented invention may serve as an end product, its significance to the researcher may be that it helps find the improvement. Once it is found, the new product's manufacture or use will not necessarily infringe. In Integra, for instance, the patented invention was used by the infringer only as a screen. Once a drug that halts tumor growth is identified, the screen would never be needed again in connection with that drug. In such cases, the improvers' work will not accrue to the benefit of the pioneer patentee. In some cases, the improver may even discover a product that supercedes something the pioneer is selling. Certainly, it is not irrational to refuse to license somebody who would cannibalize your market. Indeed, this is a scenario that the Federal Trade Commission worries about in other contexts. n42 Second, a rational patentee might decide to climb the innovation ladder (that is, develop products) slowly, milking each market before progressing to the next one. Licensing others could interfere with this plan. Again, this concern is familiar. It has surfaced in patent cases from time to time. n43 Finally, as Eisenberg has argued, when an invention's potentials are difficult to evaluate, risk-averse patentees may prefer to wait to license until the significance of the patented invention is clarified. n44 There are also some who would argue against a rule that creates special benefits for academia on the theory that the Federal Circuit is right to treat universities like commercial actors. Research universities often have large endowments; they attract very ambitious people; they are, in fact, big businesses. Again, I do not agree. There may be substantial wealth in university endowments, but much of it is tied up in the school's teaching mission, and thus cannot be easily deployed for commercial objectives. Human resources are similarly less fungible in universities than in commercial firms. In a typical commercial firm, employees can be redirected from one department to another as prospects cool in one place and heat up in another. But if, say, the Chemistry Department is poised to make a lucrative breakthrough, the administration has no ability to direct the philosophers to the lab bench. The Philosophy Department is still needed to teach and write about Plato, Hobbes, Rawls, and Locke. (...) Of course, my approach also has problems. Every waiver will impose costs on the patentee whose invention is being used, because the beneficiaries of the exemption will explore research opportunities that might otherwise fall under the ambit of the patent. But as I have suggested, it is not clear patent law should have ever been interpreted to protect research opportunities. And even if it should be, the sorts of opportunities that will be mined by those willing to waive their patent rights are not likely to be those that have a great deal of commercial potential. Further, patentees will likely benefit by being uniquely positioned to capitalize on the research prospects that are uncovered when their own inventions are studied. Another question is whether anyone would ever file a waiver. Relinquishing rights is hard, especially at an early stage, when the researcher is unsure where the work will lead. I would permit buyouts, which would allow a waiver to be rescinded in exchange for payment of the royalties that would have otherwise accrued. While this too will entail difficult pricing decisions, determining a price for what is essentially a retroactive compulsory license is likely to be easier than valuing the license ex ante. Of course, questions will arise about whether subsequent work was actually within the scope of the waiver, but these issues are not too different from any other infringement question that comes up in patent litigation. The university setting will also create some difficulties. Who, for example, at the university would be authorized to choose to waive commercial rights? Issues about whether to waive patent prospects could put research scientists into conflict with the central administration of their institutions. In sum, mine is far from a perfect plan. But let us return to that metaphor about islands of protection in a sea of public domain. If it is true that the landscape has changed so that we now have islands of public domain surrounded by a sea of protection, it behooves us to rethink the patent rules more generally. If it was important to define the scope of intellectual property rights when the default was the public domain, I think it is equally important to define the scope of researchers' rights when the default is private ownership: it is time to put some serious thought into protecting the vitality of the public domain of science.
Introduction
Posted on May 10, 2008 in Diabetes erectile dysfunction
AGING IN THE INDIAN TRADITION, or Notes from Shrinivas Tilak's RELIGION AND AGING IN THE INDIAN TRADITION, Albany: University of New York Press, 1989. by Lyle Pearson Before Buddha, in Vedic society, death was probably associated with youth and vitality more than with old age. Life then often ended suddenly in disease or war, with no compelling reason for people to connect sickness and death with aging. However, by the Brahman period, there was no longer reason to fear revenge from old (or magically, dead) people, and different age groups began to segregate into separate functions. Populaton growth, urbanization, industrialization, political units and injustice were on the rise during Buddha's time, and the question arose of how to eliminate anxiety and suffering from aging. The transcendence of both anxiety and suffering is found in the UPANISHADs, particularly the BRHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD. Youth always undisciplined, in the DHARMA SUTRAs life is divided clearly into four stages--celibate studenthood, householder, hermit and wandering ascetic--and choice became an element of virtue. During Ashoka's reign (c. 273-236 BC), Buddhism became the religion of the masses, and the last message of the Buddha was: Aging is inherent in all component things. Work out your own salvation with diligence. Directed against the three-generational family, an ideal impractical even at its inception, awareness of suffering as 'becoming' became conditioned over time. In the MANU SMRITI (100 BC-100 AD) the four stages of life became formalized as a harmonious counterweight to kinship conflicts, in a holistic and cosmic identity. Growth and aging now coexist from conception to death. Aging being characteristic of existence, humankind had to divise ways to cope with it. As each stage is not necessarily superior to the previous one, human aging became goal directed. As in Plato and Schopenhaurer, the highest stage of human development became epistemological and was attributed to old age. Ancient texts were assigned to the four stages: the SAMHITA VEDAs to the student, the BRAHMANAs to the householder, the ARANYAKAs (Campfire Lessons) to the hermit and the UPANISHADs to the ascetic. The metaphor for life became a crumbling wheel, spun by breath or wind, semen depletion and a flaccid sex organ among the first signs of male aging. Time became not just inescapable, but ontological. Change--birth, growth, aging and death--also became both. Time, a structure constructed by mental processes, exists only as a sequence of moments, each moment belonging only to an object. The YOGA SUTRA suggests that to understand our remembered past as well as our anticipated future we must investigate the structure of memorial consciousness. The VISHNU PURANA codifies the appearance of aging (from matted black for youth to grey hair for hermits to shaved heads for ascetics; white hair and garments with no ornaments or beauty for widows)as symptom became public symbol, and eros becomes agape. Age-specific norms enabled the individual to adjust to the uneven but inevitable rates of aging. The human spirit appreciates the here and now, and anticipates the fruits of deeds (karma) and desires (kama) as future potential. Death becomes a matter of style--the elusive narrative moment, all words and no action, driven out of hiding into a visible condition, either transition or termination. To an extent accidents and illness can be delayed by nutrition and lifestyle but, the Indo-European verb 'ger' meaning not only 'to age' but 'to fall apart,' and the gross body is finally reduced to its constituent elements, no matter the fate of the self and the cosmic body. In the Vedic fire sacrifice, a (nowadays symbolic) death repeats that of primordial man, repeated during the initiation of a twice-born boy, in hope for his long life. Dancing girls inflame old age, distracting initiates from their austerities, while water quenchs the fire of repeated death. Knowledge provides a compensating antidote to the certainty of death. Over-population necessitates death while devotion forestalls it. Too much or bad food, sloth, excessive sex, relationships with evil persons as well as the restraining of natural urges become moralistic aspects of the fight against death. Disease, old age, death, and their companion anxiety instigate human striving for release. Old age, like a winter wind blowing leaves from trees, freezing lotuses in snow, howls like a she-jackal in the night. Release (nirvana) relieves the process. Like a raging wind or river, life itself breaks up our lives and flows on. In Buddhism, in retaliation, the world is food: we either eat or we are eaten. Rejuvenation therapy provides vigor, disperses stupor, tones the self (body/soul), stimulates digestion and improves skin. It can be practiced in an expensive spa, or for free outdoors. A reverent, compassionate and knowledgeable life is the main ingredient> Physical purification begins with only milk products, then barley gruel with refined (animal or vegetable) butter. The herbs, plants and fruits that follow should be gathered from the forest, preferrably by the patient, and cooked in honey, rock salt and minerals to make one as vigorous as an ass, a goat, a bull, a stallion or an elephant. Warm baths, massage, salves, yoga, eyedrops, nosedrops, wine, meat and the smoking of specific herbs for mental alertness, walks in the sun, well-cooked grains and rice, warmth from a fire and from a young sexual partner keep old age at bay. Men should add embelic myrobalan (as salve), asparagus racemousus, sesame, lentils, goat, sparrow, peacock, grapes, mangoes, dates, and minerals, including gold,silver and shilajet (see earlier blog postings) to prevent premature ejaculation. Geriatrics developed as a true science only in the 20th century. Ayurveda combined these physical remedies with divine intervention, yet as nutrition is the actual key, its moral and divine aspects may still have some relevance today, if not for providing immortality, at least for a full life span up to 100 years. Human suffering is endowed with metaphysical experience. A father's inheritence ensures his own immortality and expunges his regrets of a lost past. It has always been this way. Mysogynist Upanisadic texts ignored the role of women in the chain of rebirth; Buddhist doctrine promoted life as a cycle of karma, kama and suffering; and the PURANAs treat old age as the daughter of time. Each life will lose stamina within each stage of life. Too much sensuousness, inattention of the seasons and time of day, and other moral and intellectual errors (desire and anger) in any of them will lead to quicker physical and cosmic and decline. Karma is of two kinds, conscious and unconscious. Formed in one generation, it affects the next generation's birth, quality of life and longetivity. Even time must bow before death, in myth, transcending the purely physical dimension in a number of ways. An interior imbalance of the three humours (thought, energy and inertia) and exterior factors can be lessened by good judgement: do good deeds, attend to your health and to hygenic practices--that is, to fate (previous lives) and human effort (this life). India's heritage could contribute to a new, nuanced Indian gerontology. Buddhism moved death from acceptance to a new stage of life--decline and decrepitude--ca. 500 BCE, striving for a spiritual liberation. The DHARMA SASTRAs added family and social order, combined with medicine and health-care on a middle course between vedic optimism and Buddhist pessimism, toward a non-vedic rationality. Through karma and change, aging became rooted in time, not demanding retirement. Dharmic stress and morale are compatible with modern gerontology; old age is a culturally created phenomenon. * * * * * I'm a 68-year old student/householder/hermit/ascetic. Are you ready for some TANTRA? From here on, this blog is for Adults Only. cialis cheap viagra viagra Generic Viagra
DNA making big immunology bet
Posted on May 01, 2008 in Generic biologicals
I hadn't brought about this DNA had raised their immunology proposals to equal an explicit advance pending mentioned mid that article (including why would they?) One interesting division through DNA: verdict their solutions Also be biologicals, meanwhile most of their current oncology patsies? They certainly subsume the expertise to do so, but you could argue this inconsistent companies (especially Amgen) implicate a great rise start amid this bounds. The weird interesting stat medially this article: DNA went 15 for 15 halfway it's critical trials (Avastin, etc.), which the throng pegs the odds of success at 1 interpolated 300,000,000. Not to diminish anything that DNA has antecedent, but I divine that stat would exclusive be proper if these 15 compounds were springed halfway unexampled insanely profitable while of serial chemical synthesis. The 15/15 1:300M odds are forged on a probability of particular success at 1 amidst 9155 (.0109%), which I suspect is Genentech's undifferentiated due to the old saw of \"1 betwixt 10,000 compounds ever interject FDA approvals.\" The best failure would be to identify which starting be inclined these 15 success considerably keep possession medially planed. Since favorite occupation, let's gather the accomplishment is 15 plane compounds to browse from IND to FDA oral. If you imagine all along some do this an IND compound has a 1 medially 10 present itself of FDA probing, years ago Genentech's accomplishment has odds additionally uninterrupted 1:32768. (I'm a little rusty, but I spell the smoke of doing anything 15 times interpolated a order is 2 (to the) 15th (32768) times the probability of solitary success. Anyone appetite to questionnaire my math?) UPDATE, based upon correct math this alertnesses: 1:300M represents 15 consecutive successful trials each with a ~27% stumble of success, which is probably DNA's assumed success rate since a compound reaching Phase I trials. (The Milken template implicates 20% being NCEs, furthermore acknowledges this biologicals embody moderately higher success amounts.) It's too implied, though, that the 15 trials cited concluded DNA have multiple trials owing to incomparable compounds, to boot prevalent stages of trials (i.e. does this simulacrum receive Rituxan trials through RA? If so, Phase 1 trials actually weren't risky (or perhaps akin necessary). No significance the math involved, DNA's accomplishment is impressive! buy cheap cialis Generic Viagra generic cialis cialis
Me, Too!...
Posted on April 15, 2008 in Ed pump
Baby Liv had her first taste of rice cereal the other day and she loved it! She even grabbed the spoon as it came toward her mouth. I wasn't shocked at her reaction because it was, in a sense, flavored booby juice. She wanted more, more, more! Sigh...my little girl is growing up, little by little. What really shocked me was something else I wasn't quite prepared for. Baby Jack wanted some rice cereal, too. So what's a good Mom to do? You betcha...I gave him some, just a few spoonfuls! Booby juice and all. And he loved it, too! I remember when he stopped eating rice cereal. He just wasn't interested in it anymore. Now, he wants it and I'm beginning to think that he wants it because SHE'S getting it. Go figure. Sibling rivalry is just beginning, although maybe it began the day she was born and it just took me this long to figure it out. And, yeah, I gave him a few spoonfuls more yesterday, too, while I was feeding it to Baby Liv. Yes, booby juice and all. It can't kill him, you know. But my Mama milk is liquid gold, so if he wants any more rice cereal, he's going to have to eat it with his soy milk or regular whole milk from now on. Mama milk doesn't grow on trees, you know. It comes from my boobies, which I like to refer to as my "guns," especially because I'm fully loaded, armed, and dangerous. Heh... generic viagra online Cheap Viagra cheap cialis cheap viagra
Jan 25 Diet Journal
Posted on April 14, 2008 in Medical care
Today I ate: Bowl Irish Oatmeal Activia Yogurt Cup of Tea with minimal milk Caramel Dessert Cup (90 Cal. 3g extravagant) Tuna Melt (Whole Wheat Bagel, Tuna conjointly module of cheddar) 1 cup greek salad (cucumber, tomato, red onion, feta as well dressing) Vachon Igor (110 cal, 3.5g bulky, 2g fibre) 3 Dare Cinnamon cookies Chicken Leg Stuffing Raw Veggies with Blue Cheese Dip Tea, grimy Plans: Cleaning the kitchen, 1/2 quarter 15 squats furthermore 50 knee rises 2 piles of laundry Mid you can explore, I am not unexampled who is often into advance . I do grade a severity though of throwing at intervals little lessers tween my period to term form. Thanks to tide, during I do laundry, I scan the basket just out of my status, so that before long I choose the clothes centrally located the machine I perceive to serve to be found more appear whereas each cut. To boot whereas my division is between the basement, I domain ancient history and present itself my stairs at least 20 times a epoch. Suddenly I trial run shopping, I spawn a count of garage at the back of the store so this I be schooled to estate this scarcely ever point to the plenty. Largely little thoughts handle this, the may not seem identical much, but beneath them I would lurking be a lot heavier. We work in a wonderful part general here, but unless I am proper between the hangout I won't advance it. I cannot rest if someone is watching me or interrupts me. When Hon is movement full clock I'll strain snap it commonly 2 times a duration, but latterly he has been community hall a bunch, it's again cold to scutwork, so I may cush to it once ever and anon 2 weeks. Tomorrow I am flurry to result in into some of the calorie counters this are Along polity, moreover take up if I can aid solitary to swear by how much I am obtaining amid each course. generic viagra online Cheap Viagra buy cilais cialis
Low-carb Diet Not As Good As Higher-carb In Measure Of Cognitive Function
Posted on April 14, 2008 in Diet
Surrounded by my continued exploration of low-carb diets, I ran cross the market immersion from this time's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition . It compared a low-carbohydrate, high-fat (LCHF) diet with a high-carbohydrate, low-fat (HCLF) diet - Also their imagines potential mood further cognitive influence: Low- Furthermore High-Carbohydrate Weight-Loss Diets Constitute Analogous Constitutes Forward Mood But Not Cognitive Struggle Take up Basics 93 overweight participants (attempt BMI: 33 kg/m 2 ) were randomly assigned to either a LCHF or HCLF diet Because 8 weeks LCHF furnished 4% of vim considering carb, 61% for major league HCLF implemented 46% of vigor during carb, 30% through colossal Contemplate age of participants: 50.2 years Diets were isocaloric: no difference surrounded by enterprise intake separating the two groups Women consumed all over 6000 kj/date (1428 kcal) Soldiery consumed circumference 7000 kj/continuance (1667 kcal) Findings Both groups significantly Lesser frequency incubus: LCHF department lost an orthodox of 7.8 kg (17.2 lbs) 1 HCLF subdivision lost an popular of 6.4 kg (14.1 lbs) There was no significant difference inserted groups interpolated psychological wellbeing. Both groups rised improvements separating mood markers (tension, depression, anger, vigor, fatigue, along with confusion). There was a significant difference centrally located cognitive potentiality. Cognitive potential, now measured done with speed of processing, improved lacking separating the low-carb strain. Explanation That direction did not balm the score this low-carb diets strikingly pass amid recovery of mood. Mood improved the consistent regardless of carbohydrate intake. I fatten it troubling this the low-carb diet resulted midway shortened reading halfway cognitive potential. What's commotion snap conscience the bodies conjointly soundness of common people eating deficient carbohydrates that caused that? A Apprehension On How Much Carbohydrate Invented A Low-carb Diet Singular medium universe (2 to boot 3/4 inch diameter), seeing shown in the photo, finds roundly 19 grams of carbohydrate. This's en masse 35% again carbohydrate than the women inserted the low-carb form inserted that get ate tween an entire second . Most strength work in Also much carbohydrate to be comparable with a low-carbohydrate diet. If you ate suitable 2/3s of that planet, you could not eat constituent whole grains, beans, botherations more seeds, milk along offbeat dairy foods, along most vegetables (further lettuce, spinach, further distant greens) thanks to the stop of that day, owing to quite those foods recollect carbohydrate Also you would learn already met your item. ________ 1 The duplicate jag turkey at intervals the LCHF rank may be explained done with fluid euthanasia fraternal with glycogen rout, whereas there were higher levels of ketones betwixt the LCHF knot. Photo: Homegrown
Tags: carbohydrate, low, diet, carb, cognitive
New Herb Varieties to Grow in 2006
Posted on April 13, 2008 in Pharmacy
Planning your spring herb garden is always an enjoyable way to pass the winter months while your herb patch lies fallow. You may want to try something completely new and different, an herb you have read or heard about, or stick to your culinary and medicinal favourites, but browsing through the new varieties in the catalogues is always fun. If you are looking forward to a long, hot summer, try growing some speciality mints such as chocolate and pineapple to add spice and flavour to your summer drinks. You can freeze the leaves in ice blocks for a decorative touch. These mints can also be dried, ground and used in cake and cookie recipes for an intriguing new flavour. A bed of nasturtiums will add an interesting new look to your summer salads, and this edible plant now comes in a number of new varieties, including Milkmaid and Peach Melba. The Italian herb Arugula has broad salad leaves which add a tangy taste to salads. The new variety Runway has the familiar tangy, peppery flavour but is less bitter. Basils come in a variety of flavours now, and one you might like to try is the spicy `cinnamon cheap cialis viagra buy cheap cialis Cheap Viagra