Biopharmaceuticals, also called biologics, account for nearly one out of eight prescriptions written worldwide. One source estimates that more than $10 billion worth of biologics will come off patent by 2010. Few generic competitors are likely to enter this market, however, in light of the fact...

Several recent biomedical research initiatives have sought to make their data freely accessible to others, so as to stimulate innovation. Many of these initiatives have adopted the "open source" model that has achieved prominence in the computing industry. With respect to genomics research, open...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit currently reverses from one-third to nearly one-half of all patent claim construction decisions by the U.S. district courts. Because claim construction often determines the outcome of patent litigation, the high appellate claim...

This article examines the intellectual property conflicts that arise when creators of large-scale, publicly funded genomic databases release that data to the public. One recent genomic project, the International HapMap Project, implemented a form of data release modeled on the open source...