Recent: Allergan/Mohawk 'Sovereign Immunity' Patent Scam (Dodging PTAB) Backfires Spectacularly

Without even shedding a tear over what they've done (a betrayal to Native American values)

Summary: For over $20,000,000 (so far) the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe has agreed to pretend that it has something to do with controversial patents of Allergan, in effect grossly abusing the concept of tribal immunity while at the same time enabling privatisation of nature

THIS SITE typically focuses on software patents and Alice. But a few other high-level decisions, notably Mayo, impact patent scope as well. There are many bogus USPTO patents which are well overdue for a review by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and maybe the Federal Circuit as well. That includes patents of Allergan, which is visibly afraid of PTAB, knowing perhaps that its patents are questionable and would likely be voided upon closer scrutiny.

Allergan hired some dodgy law firm that bullies bloggers like myself; they are maximalists of patent law who are resorting to outright "scams" now (many people call it a "scam").

"Allergan hired some dodgy law firm that bullies bloggers like myself..."Patently-O's Dennis Crouch has in fact just given the platform to these patent "scammers" who misuse tribal immunity to cushion/shield monopoly of Allergan (based on bogus patents). Michael Gulliford, an advisor to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe and the Founder of Soryn IP Group, uses terms like "controversial" and “death squad” to refer to PTAB. He compares judges and courts to assassins basically. What a lunatic.

He admits upfront that the tribe takes "$13.75 million upfront, with continuing royalty payments of $3.75 million per quarter" to participate in a "scam" of Allergan. This is pure greed and mischief. The tribe's reputation is dead. They know it. In his own words:

Native Americans and patents don’t make headlines. That changed when the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, located in upstate New York, conceived a lucrative transaction that saw Allergan transfer patents covering the dry eye drug Restasis€® to the Tribe. In return, the Tribe agreed to use its sovereign status to protect the patents from a controversial administrative proceeding coined the patent “death squad”, and to license the patents to Allergan. Allergan paid the Tribe $13.75 million upfront, with continuing royalty payments of $3.75 million per quarter.

The tribe now has very serious trouble in its hands; it has become widely associated with apatent "scammers" (especially in news headlines). These tribes are usually renowned with preservation and opposition to private ownership; this tribe is now known for the very opposite. It's a greedy opportunist that helps a bunch of billionaires have a monopoly on nature.

"The tribe now has very serious trouble in its hands; it has become widely associated with a patent "scammers" (especially in news headlines)."Whose idea was it? The lawyers', no doubt, both Allergan's and the tribe's. "AstraZeneca sign[ed] [an] $1.5B antibody deal with Allergan" a couple of years ago, so it's clear that they increasingly just rely on notorious patents on life.

As we noted here before, Patent Docs habitually promotes patents on life (stuff like CRISPR and beyond) and a few hours ago it republished a page ("Antibodies in the European Patent Office") from a patent law firm, noting upfront that "[t]he following article was reprinted with permission from J A Kemp." (who habitually write about the EPO, e.g. [1, 2, 3]

It starts with a discussion about Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs), which Team UPC keeps promoting, and then there's this:

This Advanced Guide is drawn primarily from our experience prosecuting large numbers of antibody cases before the EPO and our discussions with EPO examiners. This may raise the question: Why is there so little supporting case law?

The main reason is that antibody case law at the EPO has been relatively slow to develop in recent years. In our opinion this is because the most common pending antibody applications during this period have focused narrowly on a lead molecule or molecules of the applicant.

It really comes to show just how much uncertainty surrounds these patents. They're almost shrouded in mystery. Well, the examiners at the EPO are resisting these, but patent maximalists such as Team UPC push back hard, sometimes together with IAM. Lately we've been receiving pointers to sites which oppose patents on life; EPO insiders, perhaps witnessing public protests to that effect, understand the injustice/irrationality of such a concept. What will the Boards of Appeal, whose member has allegedly been bullied into severe depression by Battistelli's abuses, do on that matter? ⬆