Are you a patent attorney working in the life sciences sector? Would you be interested in new research insights into international patent filing strategies for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies? And – most importantly – would you be willing to spare just 15 minutes to complete a short survey to assist researchers at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law to obtain those research insights? If so, please read on…I was contacted this week by Richard Schurman, who is one member of a team led by TJSL Adjunct Professor Randy Berholtz engaged in a year-long IP Honours Research Project with the goal of assisting bio-pharmaceutical companies and patent practitioners in deciding which countries to file for patent protection. (Richard is second from the left in the above photo. The other pictured are, from left to right, co-researchers Derek Midkiff, Sumant Pathak, Katherine MacFarlane and Vince Davies.)
According to a TJSL media release:
The goal of the honours research project is to provide life science companies and patent practitioners with a comprehensive guide regarding the countries where biopharma patents are filed, the countries where life science companies and patent practitioners should file for patent protection, and the factors that life science companies and patent practitioners should take into consideration when strategizing for international patent protection.
The project includes a survey of practitioners, for which each member of the team has taken on a different region of the world. Richard is responsible for the Asia-Pacific region, which of course includes Australia and New Zealand.
Importance of Input from Australasia
As regular readers of this blog will be aware, Australia has an active pharmaceutical industry, and a market in which drug originators compete with generic manufacturers for sales of unpatented products. Patents thus play an important role in the Australian pharmaceutical market, and litigation over blockbuster drug patents is not uncommon. Current, and recently-concluded, cases in the Federal Court of Australia have involved drug originators such as GlaxoSmithKline, Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare, H Lundbeck, AstraZeneca, Albany Molecular Research, Sanofi-Aventis and Wyeth, and generic manufacturers such as Alphapharm, Sigma Pharmaceuticals, Aspen Pharma, Sandoz and Apotex.The situation in New Zealand is a little different. For government-subsidised drugs (i.e. the majority of pharmaceutical sales) there is no competition for sales to the end consumer. Instead, subsidised medications are purchased on behalf of the New Zealand government by its agency Pharmac, which issues multi-product tenders annually for the supply of selected drugs. Patents are therefore significant in New Zealand because they can determine the ability of generic manufacturers to participate in the tender process.
Strategies for filing patents into Australia and New Zealand are therefore important. And, of course, strategies for filing internationally are important to companies and research institutions conducting work in Australia and New Zealand on new medications, treatments and therapies.
Responses to the TJSL survey from attorneys practising in Australia and New Zealand will therefore be of great value to the project.
Who Is Eligible to Participate?
The survey is open to patent attorneys from any country who prosecute patents in the biotechnology or pharmaceutical sectors. All personally identifiable information will be kept confidential. It should take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Respondents have the voluntary option of entering in their email address to receive the survey results when they are released, and to be considered in a drawing for one of several gifts.To Find Out More…
If you have any questions about the project or the survey, you can email Richard Schurman directly at schurmrh@tjsl.edu. The results of the survey will be released on 11 April 2014 in San Diego, at a public seminar event with panel discussions on the evolving field of international patent law.Before You Go…
Thank you for reading this article to the end – I hope you enjoyed it, and found it useful. Almost every article I post here takes a few hours of my time to research and write, and I have never felt the need to ask for anything in return.
But now – for the first, and perhaps only, time – I am asking for a favour. If you are a patent attorney, examiner, or other professional who is experienced in reading and interpreting patent claims, I could really use your help with my PhD research. My project involves applying artificial intelligence to analyse patent claim scope systematically, with the goal of better understanding how different legal and regulatory choices influence the boundaries of patent protection. But I need data to train my models, and that is where you can potentially assist me. If every qualified person who reads this request could spare just a couple of hours over the next few weeks, I could gather all the data I need.
The task itself is straightforward and web-based – I am asking participants to compare pairs of patent claims and evaluate their relative scope, using an online application that I have designed and implemented over the past few months. No special knowledge is required beyond the ability to read and understand patent claims in technical fields with which you are familiar. You might even find it to be fun!
There is more information on the project website, at claimscopeproject.net. In particular, you can read:
- a detailed description of the study, its goals and benefits; and
- instructions for the use of the online claim comparison application.
Thank you for considering this request!
Mark Summerfield
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