OnCo
ideasIdea

A patent pool for combination method-of-use claims

Companies fear that testing a combination will hand a competitor a patent. A shared pool where combination patents are cross-licensed by default would remove the fear.

Method-of-use patents on combinations create a hold-up problem: whoever runs the trial may end up owing royalties to the other party or blocking them. Patent pools solved similar problems in DVD and telecoms standards. An oncology combination pool, entered voluntarily with fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, would make combination discovery pre-competitive.

Hypothesis
Pool members will initiate at least 50% more cross-company combination trials in the three years after joining than in the three years before.
Rationale
Pre-competitive consortia (the Structural Genomics Consortium, TransCelerate) have shown that pharma will pool where IP fear is removed and the benefit is shared.
What would test it
Convene a pool with five sponsors and a neutral administrator; track combination trial initiations and licensing disputes over three years.
Maturity
speculative
Who has to act
industry
Cost to try
Small (under $1M)
Years to first evidence
3
Bottlenecks it attacks

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