Peter Drahos | The New Press, 2007 | Book
Information Feudalism uncovers the story of how a small coterie of multinational corporations wrote the charter for the global information order. It is an authoritative history of the gradual privatization of the world's knowledge and information resources and a powerful call for democratic property rights.
Shobita Parthasarathy | University of Chicago Press, 2017 | Book
Shobita Parthasarathy makes a passionate case for a patent model that works in the public interest. The book delves into the politics of patent systems, including the political culture, ideology and history that shape them and shows how the American and European approaches to governing innovation have diverged — and why that matters.
Joe Nocera | Bloomberg, 2018 | Book
When asked who owned the patent on the polio vaccine that he developed, Joseph Salk answered "the people." In this article, Joe Nocera contrasts Salk's idea of innovating for the public interest with today's model, using as an example the "thicket of patents" erected by the drugmaker Gilead around Sovaldi, a Hepatitis C drug. Key quote: "Could you patent the sun? No need. The universe of Big Pharma now orbits around patents themselves."
Al Jazeera, 2019 | Watch
This documentary investigates the various strategies pharmaceutical companies are using — in particular extending patent monopolies — to increase continuously the prices of prescription medication in the U.S. and how hefty price tags are costing lives.
NBC Nightly News, 2019 | Watch
A look at how patients are struggling to afford America's top-grossing drug, Humira, and how overpatenting by one company prevents competition from entering the U.S.
Peter Drahos | Cambridge University Press, 2010 | Book
This book describes how patent offices have been captured by the interests of multinational companies. It also discusses potential solutions to patent office administration that would allow countries to recapture the public spirit of the intended purpose of patent system.
Priti Krishtel | Morning Consult, 2019 | Article
Unlike in many other countries, the American public has little say in what happens at the patent office, even though patents drive high drug prices and affect the health and well-being of millions of people. In this piece, Krishtel makes the case for more public participation in the American patent system and shows how this more participatory model has led to millions of dollars in savings abroad.
I-MAK | Medium, 2021 | Article
I-MAK outlines 10 actions that could transform the United States Patent and Trademark Office into a meaningful agent of change — one that fosters both progress and equity and that, ultimately, improves the lives of millions of people in America and around the world.
The New York Times Editorial Board | The New York Times, 2022 | Article
