Reject Kappos and Iancu – they personally profit from the plan
Alex Moss and Tim Iwayemi, 24 - Alex Moss is the executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute. She was previously at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a patent litigator at Sullivan & Cromwell and Durie Tangri. After graduating from Stanford Law School, she served as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Timothy B. Dyk of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.Timi Iwayemi is a research director at the Revolving Door Project. “Senators’ Latest Attempt to Enrich Big Pharma Must Not Prevail” The American Prospect, 3/29, https://prospect.org/power/2024-03-29-senators-latest-attempt-enrich-big-pharma/ //DH
Two of the biggest supporters of these bills are former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) directors David Kappos and Andrei Iancu. This is no surprise. Since leaving their roles, Kappos and Iancu have committedly opposed efforts to remodel our clearly anti-competitive patent system. What’s more, the former directors advocate loudly for changing the law while remaining silent about the corporate interests they represent. After leaving the USPTO, David Kappos joined the partnership of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, which represents Amgen, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis, among other pharma heavyweights. Iancu is now a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, which lists AbbVie, Bayer, and Merck among its life sciences clients. He also founded the Council for Innovation Promotion as an outfit to more systematically support the entrenchment of the current anti-competitive system.
The former directors’ current roles reveal the other primary beneficiaries of the proposed bills: law firms and lawyers. Patent litigation is big business, with costs ranging from $2 to $4 million per case on average. But recently, patent litigation rates have begun to decline sharply. Given the business they stand to lose, it’s no wonder that law firm partners are pushing for changes that would ensure more patents are granted and litigated in court. Lawyers have every right to advocate for their own interests and those of their clients. But when they do, they should be transparent about it, instead of using the veneer of their former roles in the public sector to paint their positions as anything other than advocacy on behalf of their corporate clients’ interests.
The patent system exists to promote scientific innovation to benefit the public, not to enrich private interests regardless of the merits of their scientific contributions. Yet that is precisely what PERA and PREVAIL would do by granting Big Pharma even more sweeping government monopolies and associated price-gouging power. We hope the senators who have shown their willingness to stand up to Big Pharma will stand up to their colleagues’ efforts to reward their benefactors.