"Leave It To" One Brenton "Beaver" Saunders... Sheesh.

At the head, let me say that I favor strong but fair intellectual property protection policies, for science based companies -- be they tech- or device- or pharma- or bio-science companies. But after a long patent life, such innovations should go generic. That is only fair. [And poor, non-novel, weak or redundant patents ought to be subject to a robust challenge process -- the strong should survive -- in the Darwinian sense. Patents are, after all. . . monopolies (antithetical to most other free market rules). But that is all just background, to this latest nonsense. This nonsense will only last one more year -- as by then the Supremes will have ruled on this topic. Trust that -- this sovereign "game" is short lived.]

While it doesn't surprise me that Mr. Saunders would use a proud Native American tribe as a "token" -- to shore up his patent estate's immunity from generic challenges, it does disappoint me. This is (of course) the same Brent Saunders who called an anti-inversion tax interpretation by the US Treasury in April 2016 "un-American." In his view it was un-American to suggest that his company (with vast US operations and sales revenue) should just pay the same tax rate as all other US operations based companies. Check. Roger that. [A transparently-calculated move of one financial processing center -- over to Ireland -- ought not be enough to avoid or wildly reduce US taxes on one's company.]

So yes -- I should not be surprised that he would opportunistically exploit the sovereign immunity accorded to native peoples, in order to gain advantage over the USPTO. Here's the bit -- from the New York Times, overnight:

. . . .“Indian tribes have sovereignty that is stronger than states,” Mr. White said, pointing to recent Supreme Court cases that have ruled in favor of tribes. “We feel that we have an extremely strong case.”

Michael Carrier, a professor at Rutgers Law School who studies patent law, called the announcement Friday a “concerning” development, in part because the Mohawk tribe played no role in developing the drug. And he said the administrative-review panel served a worthy purpose. “Challenges at the patent office play a crucial role in overturning invalid patents, and that role could be undermined by agreements like this,” Mr. Carrier said. . . .

It does gall me that (as he learned from Fred Hassan -- and as Martin Shkreli learned from Fred Hassan) there is no goal other than minimizing tax, in the US -- and maximizing revenues retained -- with no acknowledgement that the US provides the best, deepest and richest capital market on the planet for fostering the innovations of his kind of science companies. The hypocrisy is. . . stunning.

And yes, Anon. (you know who you are!), your earlier mention of "he, of the high forehead" is why I wrote this on a fine, cool but sunny Saturday morning, over a hot coffee, OJ, banana and a bowl of the last of this Summer's dark and sweetly-ripe cherries. . . smile. Onward. . . time to work out; then a hot stone massage, this afternoon. . . .

नमस्ते