Cardozo Law Review
Abstract
When doctor Samuel Pallin, an Arizona ophthalmologist, brought an infringement suit for his patent covering the "stitchless" incision in cataract surgery, he probably did not expect that he would provoke one of the most emotional patent debates in history. Physicians across the country expressed condemnation of medical process patents, calling such patents "horrendous" and warning that Dr. Pallin's victory may have "profoundly devastating and mind-boggling consequences" for medical science. The resonance in the medical community was so strong that the American Medical Association House of Delegates passed a resolution "vigorously" condemning the patenting of medical and surgical procedures and promising to "work with Congress to outlaw this practice." On March 3, 1995, Representatives Greg Ganske and Ron Wyden introduced The Medical Procedures Innovation and Affordability Act, which would ban the issuance of patents on medical and surgical procedures. On September 30, 1996, President Clinton signed Public Law 104-208, the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act, which does not exclude medical process patents from patentable subject matter but makes such patents unenforceable against medical practitioners and related health care entities. This solution is practically an equivalent of a ban on medical process patents, since it renders such patents meaningless.
Keywords
Economics Law, Ethics, Intellectual Property Law, Medical Jurisprudence
Disciplines
Intellectual Property Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Beata Gocyk-Farber,
Patenting Medical Procedures: A Search for a Compromise Between Ethics and Economics,
18
Cardozo L. Rev.
1527
(1997).
Available at:
https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/clr/vol18/iss4/6