Thursday, November 19, 2015 - 12:30pm to Friday, November 20, 2015 - 1:55pm
Location: 
Solarium (room FA2) Falconer Hall - 84 Queen's Park

HEALTH LAW, ETHICS & POLICY SEMINAR SERIES

presents 

Talha Syed
Assistant Professor
Berkeley Law, University of California 

The Pharmaceutical Patent Paradox:
Weak Patents for an Industry Needing Strong Protection 

12:30 – 2:00
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Solarium (room FA2) – Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park 

A fundamental tension at the heart of patent policy has begun to surface in recent years. Pharmaceuticals have been long viewed as the one sector where patent protection is most needed to sustain adequate levels of innovation. The article’s central aim is to highlight and draw out that pharmaceutical’s innovative activity contains twofold significance, which both merit distinct implications for innovation policy and theory. This article will focus on discussing the validation of pharmaceutical innovative activity’s safety and efficacy through clinical trials as the key information good that requires legal-policy support. 

Talha Syed’s current research focuses on equitable allocation of health and educational resources for those with "differential needs"; institutional analysis of patents and alternative policies for biopharmaceutical innovation; and evaluation of regulation and compensation for risky activities in terms of distributive justice (as opposed to efficiency, corrective justice or rights). Recent and forthcoming publications include: "Educational Opportunity for Disability as Distributive Equity: The Principle of Proportionate Benefit," "The Pharmaceutical Patent Paradox," "Amelioration, not Compensation: A Distributive Equity Approach to Pain & Suffering Damages," "Beyond Efficiency: Consequence- Sensitive Theories of Copyright" (with Oren Bracha), "Beyond the Incentive-Access Paradigm? Product Differentiation and Copyright Revisited" (with Oren Bracha), "Nonexcludability and the Limits of Patents" (with Amy Kapczynski), and "Global Justice in Healthcare" (with William W. Fisher). 

Joint seminar with the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy 

A light lunch will be served.