The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has requested public comments on “the current state of patent eligibility jurisprudence in the United States, and how the current jurisprudence has impacted investment and innovation.”We write as academics who have conducted empirical studies of...

Observers worry that generic patent challenges are on the rise and reduce the effective market life of drugs. A related concern is that challenges disproportionately target high-sales drugs, reducing market life for these “blockbusters.” To study these questions, we examine new data on...

The Hatch-Waxman Act regulates competition between brand-name and generic drugs in the United States. We examine a feature of the Act that has attracted great controversy but little systematic attention. “Paragraph IV” challenges are a mechanism for generic drug makers to challenge the...

Many have advocated for the expansion of peer review to improve scientific judgments in law and public policy. One such test case is the patent examination process, with numerous commentators arguing that scientific peer review can solve informational deficits in patent determinations. We...