C4IP Co-Chairs and former USPTO Directors Andrei Iancu and David Kappos recently published an opinion piece in RealClear Health highlighting the unintended consequences that would arise if the Medication Affordability and Patent Integrity Act (MAPIA) is passed by Congress and signed into law.
Supporters of the bill argue that drug companies take advantage of a lack of coordination between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to inflate drug prices. But Iancu and Kappos contend that these claims are baseless, because existing legal safeguards already prevent this sort of behavior.
They further argue that MAPIA’s unnecessary reforms would create government waste and inefficiency, exacerbate backlogs in the patent examination process, and weaken intellectual property rights to the benefit of international rivals like China.
“Blurring the lines of authority around the comprehensive processes already in place at USPTO and the FDA won’t make patients better off,” Iancu and Kappos explain. “It’ll only jeopardize American companies’ competitive edge, squander government resources, and help foreign competitors and copycats.”