Word: patentable
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...found some allies in the Chinese courts. Pfizer won a landmark trademark-infringement case in October when a Chinese court ordered a domestic company to stop using Pfizer's logo on its website and fined the offender $25,000. Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella, for one, cites China's "enlightened" patent laws as the reason the Swiss drugmaker will continue to invest in China vs. India, where a court recently rejected the company's attempt to protect a patent on a leukemia drug. "China has made tremendous progress and taken the steps to show they have the right priorities," he says...
...wildlife from what they call "biocolonialism" or "biopiracy." The governments are drafting strict laws to ensure that the world's 300 million mostly poor tribal people share in the wealth that their knowledge helps create. One of the newer strategies is for governments or indigenous communities to obtain commercial patent rights on medicines and other products divined in animals and plants before the labs can muscle in. (None of the new laws are retroactive.) They also hope to make biocolonialism a key global trade issue at next month's meeting of the U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva...
Many pharmaceutical firms have drawn criticism for extending their franchises through frivolous lawsuits blocking equivalent generic drugs that are much less expensive. To allow drug companies to recoup investments and collect healthy returns, the Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984 gives companies 20-year monopolies from the day they patent a product. (After that, revenues from a drug can drop as much as 80% within months as generics erode the market.) The law allows drug firms a 30-month monopoly extension to resolve patent disputes. That loophole is much abused. Companies often sue generic manufacturers just to buy time...
...name Katonah for the furniture and a long list of other household goods last year, residents fought back. A February meeting--which featured Martha-made cookies--didn't prompt a withdrawal of the application, so the Katonah Village Improvement Society (KVIS) and two businesses filed petitions with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. "To the people of Katonah," said KVIS president Lydia Landesberg, "it felt like identity theft...
...based on the DNA sequence of the active bacterium Mycoplasma gentitalium. Their artificial chromosome was built entirely from available chemicals and has been christened, Mycoplasma labortorium. In theory, the chromosome could be transplanted into an empty bacterial cell and replicate itself thereafter. Synthetic Genomics has already filed for a patent on their “biological invention.” Scientists believe that they will soon be able to create “designer genomes,” promising synthetic bacteria that could curb global warming by breaking down atmospheric carbon dioxide or ease global energy needs by producing nonpolluting...