Source: https://truthonthemarket.com/tag/innovation/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 18:27:30+00:00

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[TOTM: The following is the first in a series of posts by TOTM guests and authors on the FTC v. Qualcomm case, currently awaiting decision by Judge Lucy Koh in the Northern District of California.
It is not uncommon—in fact it is expected—that parties to a negotiation would have different opinions about the reasonableness of any deal. Every buyer asks for a price as low as possible, and sellers naturally request prices at which buyers (feign to) balk. A recent movement among some lawyers and economists has been to label such disagreements in the context of standard-essential patents not as a natural part of bargaining, but as dispositive proof of “hold-up,” or the innovator’s purported abuse of newly gained market power to extort implementers. We have four primary issues with this hold-up fad.
First, such claims of “hold-up” are trotted out whenever an innovator’s royalty request offends the commentator’s sensibilities, and usually with reference to a theoretical hold-up possibility rather than any matter-specific evidence that hold-up is actually present. Second, as we have argued elsewhere, such arguments usually ignore the fact that implementers of innovations often possess significant countervailing power to “hold-out” as well. This is especially true as implementers have successfully pushed to curtail injunctive relief in standard-essential patent cases. Third, as Greg Werden and Froeb have recently argued, it is not clear why patent holdup—even where it might exist—need implicate antitrust law rather than be adequately handled as a contractual dispute. Lastly, it is certainly not the case that every disagreement over the value of an innovation is an exercise in hold-up, as even economists and lawyers have not reached anything resembling a consensus on the correct interpretation of a “fair” royalty.
At the heart of this case (and many recent cases) is (1) an indictment of Qualcomm’s desire to charge royalties to the maker of consumer devices based on the value of its technology and (2) a lack (to the best of our knowledge from public documents) of well vetted theoretical models that can provide the underpinning for the theory of the case. We discuss these in turn.
In arguing that “Qualcomm’s royalties are disproportionately high relative to the value contributed by its patented inventions,” (Complaint, ¶ 77) a key issue is whether Qualcomm can calculate royalties as a percentage of the price of a device, rather than a small percentage of the price of a chip. (Complaint, ¶¶ 61-76).
What the FTC and proponents of the smallest component principle miss is that some of the value of all components of a smartphone are derived directly from the phone’s communication ability. Smartphones didn’t initially replace small portable cameras because they were better at photography (in fact, smartphone cameras were and often continue to be much worse than devoted cameras). The value of a smartphone camera is that it combines picture taking with immediate sharing over text or through social media. Thus, unlike the FTC’s claim that most of the value of a smartphone comes from features that are not communication, many features on a smartphone derive much of their value from the communication powers of the phone.
For example, imagine that the same component (incorporating the same essential patent) is used to help stabilize flight of both commercial airplanes and toy airplanes. Clearly, these industries are likely to have different values for the patent. By negotiating over a single royalty rate based on the component price, the innovator would either fail to realize the added value of its patent to commercial airlines, or (in the case that the component is targeted primary to the commercial airlines) would not realize the incremental market potential from the patent’s use in toy airplanes. In either case, the innovator will not be negotiating over the entirety of the value it creates, leading to too little innovation.
Modern antitrust practice is to use economic models to explain how one gets from the evidence presented in a case to an anticompetitive conclusion. As Froeb, et al. have discussed, by laying out a mapping from the evidence to the effects, the legal argument is made clear, and gains credibility because it becomes falsifiable. The FTC complaint hypothesizes that “Qualcomm has excluded competitors and harmed competition through a set of interrelated policies and practices.” (Complaint, ¶ 3). Although Qualcomm explains how each of these policies and practices, by themselves, have clear business justifications, the FTC claims that combining them leads to an anticompetitive outcome.
Without providing a formal mapping from the evidence to an effect, it becomes much more difficult for a court to determine whether the theory of harm is correct or how to weigh the evidence that feeds the conclusion. Without a model telling it “what matters, why it matters, and how much it matters,” it is much more difficult for a tribunal to evaluate the “interrelated policies and practices.” In previous work, we have modeled the bilateral bargaining between patentees and licensees and have shown that when bilateral patent contracts are subject to review by an antitrust court, bargaining in the shadow of such a court can reduce the incentive to invest and thereby reduce welfare.
What the FTC makes sound nefarious seems like a simple policy: requiring companies to seek licenses to Qualcomm’s intellectual property independent of any hardware that those companies purchase, and basing the royalty of that intellectual property on (an admittedly crude measure of) the value the IP contributes to that product. High prices alone do not constitute harm to competition. The FTC must clearly explain why their complaint is not simply about the “fairness” of the outcome or its desire that Qualcomm employ different bargaining paradigms, but rather how Qualcomm’s behavior harms the process of competition.
In the late 1950s, Nobel Laureate Robert Solow attributed about seven-eighths of the growth in U.S. GDP to technical progress. As Solow later commented: “Adding a couple of tenths of a percentage point to the growth rate is an achievement that eventually dwarfs in welfare significance any of the standard goals of economic policy.” While he did not have antitrust in mind, the import of his comment is clear: whatever static gains antitrust litigation may achieve, they are likely dwarfed by the dynamic gains represented by innovation.
Patent law is designed to maintain a careful balance between the costs of short-term static losses and the benefits of long-term gains that result from new technology. The FTC should present a sound theoretical or empirical basis for believing that the proposed relief sufficiently rewards inventors and allows them to capture a reasonable share of the whole value their innovations bring to consumers, lest such antitrust intervention deter investments in innovation.
Last week, Senator Orrin Hatch, Senator Thom Tillis, and Representative Bill Flores introduced the Hatch-Waxman Integrity Act of 2018 (HWIA) in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. If enacted, the HWIA would help to ensure that the unbalanced inter partes review (IPR) process does not stifle innovation in the drug industry and jeopardize patients’ access to life-improving drugs.
Created under the America Invents Act of 2012, IPR is a new administrative pathway for challenging patents. It was, in large part, created to fix the problem of patent trolls in the IT industry; the trolls allegedly used questionable or “low quality” patents to extort profits from innovating companies. IPR created an expedited pathway to challenge patents of dubious quality, thus making it easier for IT companies to invalidate low quality patents.
However, IPR is available for patents in any industry, not just the IT industry. In the market for drugs, IPR offers an alternative to the litigation pathway that Congress created over three decades ago in the Hatch-Waxman Act. Although IPR seemingly fixed a problem that threatened innovation in the IT industry, it created a new problem that directly threatened innovation in the drug industry. I’ve previously published an article explaining why IPR jeopardizes drug innovation and consumers’ access to life-improving drugs. With Hatch-Waxman, Congress sought to achieve a delicate balance between stimulating innovation from brand drug companies, who hold patents, and facilitating market entry from generic drug companies, who challenge the patents. However, IPR disrupts this balance as critical differences between IPR proceedings and Hatch-Waxman litigation clearly tilt the balance in the patent challengers’ favor. In fact, IPR has produced noticeably anti-patent results; patents are twice as likely to be found invalid in IPR challenges as they are in Hatch-Waxman litigation.
Moreover, whereas patent challengers in district court must establish sufficient Article III standing, IPR proceedings do not have a standing requirement. This has given rise to “reverse patent trolling,” in which entities that are not litigation targets, or even participants in the same industry, threaten to file an IPR petition challenging the validity of a patent unless the patent holder agrees to specific pre-filing settlement demands. The lack of a standing requirement has also led to the exploitation of the IPR process by entities that would never be granted standing in traditional patent litigation—hedge funds betting against a company by filing an IPR challenge in hopes of crashing the stock and profiting from the bet.
Finally, patent owners are often forced into duplicative litigation in both IPR proceedings and federal court litigation, leading to persistent uncertainty about the validity of their patents. Many patent challengers that are unsuccessful in invalidating a patent in district court may pursue subsequent IPR proceedings challenging the same patent, essentially giving patent challengers “two bites at the apple.” And if the challenger prevails in the IPR proceedings (which is easier to do given the lower standard of proof), the PTAB’s decision to invalidate a patent can often “undo” a prior district court decision. Further, although both district court judgments and PTAB decisions are appealable to the Federal Circuit, the court applies a more deferential standard of review to PTAB decisions, increasing the likelihood that they will be upheld compared to the district court decision.
The pro-challenger bias in IPR creates significant uncertainty for patent rights in the drug industry. As an example, just last week patent claims for drugs generating $6.5 billion for drug company Sanofi were invalidated in an IPR proceeding. Uncertain patent rights will lead to less innovation because drug companies will not spend the billions of dollars it typically costs to bring a new drug to market when they cannot be certain if the patents for that drug can withstand IPR proceedings that are clearly stacked against them. And, if IPR causes drug innovation to decline, a significant body of research predicts that patients’ health outcomes will suffer as a result.
The HWIA, which applies only to the drug industry, is designed to return the balance established by Hatch-Waxman between branded drug innovators and generic drug challengers. It eliminates challengers’ ability to file duplicative claims in both federal court and through the IPR process. Instead, they must choose between either Hatch-Waxman litigation (which saves considerable costs by allowing generics to rely on the brand company’s safety and efficacy studies for FDA approval) and IPR (which is faster and provides certain pro-challenger provisions). In addition to eliminating generic challengers’ “second bite of the apple,” the HWIA would also eliminate the ability of hedge funds and similar entities to file IPR claims while shorting the stock.
Thus, if enacted, the HWIA would create incentives that reestablish Hatch-Waxman litigation as the standard pathway for generic challenges to brand patents. Yet, it would preserve IPR proceedings as an option when speed of resolution is a primary concern. Ultimately, it will restore balance to the drug industry to safeguard competition, innovation, and patients’ access to life-improving drugs.
On Monday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Qualcomm reportedly requested a 30 day delay to a preliminary ruling in their ongoing dispute over the terms of Qualcomm’s licensing agreements–indicating that they may seek a settlement. The dispute raises important issues regarding the scope of so-called FRAND (“fair reasonable and non-discriminatory”) commitments in the context of standards setting bodies and whether these obligations extend to component level licensing in the absence of an express agreement to do so.
At issue is the FTC’s allegation that Qualcomm has been engaging in “exclusionary conduct” that harms its competitors. Underpinning this allegation is the FTC’s claim that Qualcomm’s voluntary contracts with two American standards bodies imply that Qualcomm is obliged to license on the same terms to rival chip makers. In this post, we examine the allegation and the claim upon which it rests.
It has been engaging in “exclusionary conduct” that taxes its competitors’ baseband processor sales, reduces competitors’ ability and incentives to innovate, and raises the prices to be paid by end consumers for cellphones and tablets.
Qualcomm is causing considerable harm to competition and consumers through its “no license, no chips” policy; its refusal to license to its chipset-maker rivals; and its exclusive deals with Apple.
The above practices allow Qualcomm to abuse its dominant position in the supply of CDMA and premium LTE modem chips.
Given that Qualcomm has made a commitment to standard setting bodies to license these patents on FRAND terms, such behaviour qualifies as a breach of FRAND.
[T]here is no robust economic evidence of exclusion and anticompetitive effects, either as to the complaint’s core “taxation” theory or to associated allegations like exclusive dealing. Instead the Commission speaks about a possibility that less than supports a vague standalone action under a Section 5 FTC claim.
Qualcomm filed a motion to dismiss on April 3, 2017. This was denied by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The court found that the FTC has adequately alleged that Qualcomm’s conduct violates § 1 and § 2 of the Sherman Act and that it had entered into exclusive dealing arrangements with Apple. Thus, the court asserted, the FTC has adequately stated a claim under § 5 of the FTCA.
It is important to note that the core of the FTC’s arguments regarding Qualcomm’s abuse of dominant position rests on how it adopts the “no license, no chip” policy and thus breaches its FRAND obligations. However, it falls short of proving how the royalties charged by Qualcomm to OEMs exceeds the FRAND rates actually amounting to a breach, and qualifies as what FTC defines as a “tax” under the price squeeze theory that it puts forth.
On August 30, the FTC filed a partial summary judgement motion in relation to claims on the applicability of local California contract laws. This would leave antitrust issues to be decided in the subsequent hearing, which is set for January next year.
The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS).
These agreements extend to Qualcomm’s standard essential patents (SEPs) on CDMA, UMTS and LTE wireless technologies. Under these contracts, Qualcomm is obligated to license its SEPs to all applicants implementing these standards on FRAND terms.
A review of a heavily redacted filing by FTC and a subsequent response by Qualcomm indicates that questions of fact and law continue to remain as regards Qualcomm’s licensing commitments and their scope. Thus, contrary to the FTC’s assertions, extrinsic evidence is still needed for resolution to some of the questions raised by the parties.
Indeed, the evidence produced by both parties points towards the need for resolution of ambiguities in the contractual agreements that Qualcomm has signed with ATIS and TIA. The scope and purpose of these licensing obligations lie at the core of the motion.
The IP licensing policies of the two SDOs provide for licensing of relevant patents to all applicants who implement these standards on FRAND terms. However, the key issues are whether components such as modem chips can be said to implement standards and whether component level licensing falls within this ambit. Yet, the resolution to these key issues, is unclear.
Qualcomm explains that commitments to ATIS and TIA do not require licenses to be made available for modem chips because modem chips do not implement or practice cellular standards and that standards do not define the operation of modem chips.
In contrast, the complaint by FTC raises the question of whether FRAND commitments extend to licensing at all levels. Different components needed for a device come together to facilitate the adoption and implementation of a standard. However, it does not logically follow that each individual component of the device separately practices or implements that standard even though it contributes to the implementation. While a single component may fully implement a standard, this need not always be the case.
These distinctions are significant from the point of interpreting the scope of the FRAND promise, which is commonly understood to extend to licensing of technologies incorporated in a standard to potential users of the standard. Understanding the meaning of a “user” becomes critical here and Qualcomm’s submission draws attention to this.
Device level licensing is the prevailing industry wide practice by companies like Ericsson, InterDigital, Nokia and others. In November 2017, the European Commission issued guidelines on licensing of SEPs and took a balanced approach on this issue by not prescribing component level licensing in its guidelines.
[O]nce a commitment is given to license on FRAND terms, it does not necessarily extend to chipsets and other electronic components of standards-compliant end-devices. He highlights how, in adopting its IPR Policy, ETSI intended to safeguard access to the cellular standards without changing the prevailing industry practice of manufacturers of complete end-devices concluding licenses to the standard essential patents practiced in those end-devices.
Both ATIS and TIA are organizational partners of a collaboration called 3rd Generation Partnership Project along with ETSI and four other SDOs who work on development of cellular technologies. TIA and ATIS are both accredited by ANSI. Therefore, these SDOs are likely to impact one another with the policies each one adopts. In the absence of definitive guidance on interpretation of the IPR policy and contractual terms within the institutional mechanism of ATIS and TIA, at the very least, clarity is needed on the ambit of these policies with respect to component level licensing.
The non-discrimination obligation, which as per FTC, mandates Qualcomm to license to its competitors who manufacture and sell chips, would be limited by the scope of the IPR policy and contractual agreements that bind Qualcomm and depends upon the specific SDO’s policy. As discussed, the policies of ATIS and TIA are unclear on this.
In conclusion, FTC’s filing does not obviate the need to hear extrinsic evidence on what Qualcomm’s commitments to the ETSI mean. Given the ambiguities in the policies and agreements of ATIS and TIA on whether they include component level licensing or whether the modem chips in their entirety can be said to practice the standard, it would be incorrect to say that there is no genuine dispute of fact (and law) in this instance.
Fritz L. Laux is a Professor of Economics at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
One focus in the analysis of smoke-free air (SFA) laws has been on measuring the impact smoking bans have on the restaurant and hospitality industries. The overwhelming or “consensus” result of this research is that bans impose no adverse impact on industry revenues and employment levels (Scollo et al., 2003; Scollo and Lal, 2008; Hahn, 2010; CDC Fact Sheet, 2014).
What’s puzzling about this literature is that the “no-statistical-significance” result is presented as a neutral or, “this takes the issue off the table” result. I would suggest that the robustness of this finding should be presented as “shocking” and highly significant (if not “statistically significant”).
The economic model for the behavior of profit-maximizing firms would indicate that any restaurant or hospitality venue that could benefit from a smoking ban would already have implemented such a ban. Thus, the imposition of smoking bans should never help and should always hurt such industries. While our model predicts that bans can never help restaurants and can only hurt them, our finding shows that bans tend to have no impact, and may slightly help the average restaurant. This should be viewed, if not highlighted, as surprising.
Clearly, we understand why the result might be presented with the “no adverse economic impact” headline. Restaurant and hospitality industry groups are important constituencies that can influence policy, and estimates of the business impacts of SFA laws can motivate or placate policy activists. If the laws have, on average, no adverse impact on the members of a local restaurant association, then that restaurant association should have no incentive to oppose SFA ordinances.
My suggestion, however, is that we should give more attention to the strangeness of this result and to the investigation of how this result can be occurring. Where is the market failure that prevented more restaurateurs from implementing SFA policies of their own accord, without need for SFA ordinances? Can efforts to bring more publicity to these market failures help restaurateurs and the public better to understand why SFA policies can make good policy?
The obvious (if not tautological) explanation for this weird result is that restaurateurs have somehow been consistently misestimating the business impact of SFA. There are several possible reasons for why this would happen and the most likely of these, it seems, is that social norms play a role in defining how restaurant employees and customers respond to a ban (Leibenstein, 1950). Before imposition of a ban, if the norm is to allow for smoking, then politeness dictates that we will expect restaurants to allow smoking. After a ban (and the resulting change in norms), just as nobody expects to smoke at a fitness club, smoking customers experience reduced desire or expectation of smoking in restaurants. Thus, if the ban changes the norm in ways that restaurateurs do not anticipate, we see empirical results such that industry impact is positive or zero instead of negative.
Borland (2006) with coauthors from the International Tobacco Control project provide evidence of just this kind of an effect. In a survey of current smokers, they found that for those U.S. smokers reporting that they lived in jurisdictions where restaurant smoking was not banned, only 17.5% supported bans on restaurant smoking. For smokers who reported total bans on restaurant smoking in their jurisdictions, 65.5% supported bans on restaurant smoking. Not surprisingly, it seems that expectations and preferences are affected by changes in norms.
With over three-fourths of the U.S. population now living in jurisdictions covered by 100% smoke-free restaurant laws, such shifts in norms within the U.S. are well underway. However, in communities where restaurant smoking is still commonly accepted, complaining to a restaurant manager about another customer’s smoking might seem a bit strange and confrontational. In these situations, patrons and employees may also not be as aware of the health consequences of secondhand smoke. After the publicity of a smoke-free air ordinance heightens awareness and after having experienced eating in a smoke-free restaurants, the value patrons place on smoke-free air may go up. Similarly, restaurant employee may acquire increased preferences for work in smoke-free establishments (Tang et al., 2004).
Although this argument seems less convincing (given the large percentages of restaurants that did go smoke-free well in advance of SFA law implementation), another possible explanation for how restaurateurs could have so consistently misestimated the business impact of smoke-free air policies is that they may have been influenced by incorrect or biased information. From the 1980s through the early 2000s, restaurant managers would have received lots of communication from various state and national industry associations arguing either that smoking restrictions would hurt business or that improved ventilation, rather than going smoke free, would be the correct industry response. As can be seen in online archives of tobacco industry documents, the Tobacco Institute was actively working with hospitality industry associations to promote such an “accommodation strategy” (via improved ventilation and smoking sections) for restaurants during these years when most smoke-free air legislation was passed (Dearlove et al., 2002). This industry-funded analysis, as intended, did likely have some influence the decisions made by restaurateurs.
From those who oppose SFA laws, the primary argument has been that, if bans do not hurt the restaurant and hospitality industries, why do they need to be imposed on these industries? Would not any restaurants and bars that could benefit from smoking bans have already implemented such bans of their own accords? My suggestion is that, in any advocacy for SFA, it may be appropriate to try to answer these objections more directly. Using research like the Borland et al. (2006) article, we can suggest why it is that restaurateurs, who would benefit from SFA implementation, don’t implement SFA policies of their own accords. Then, after having offered theoretical explanations, we can present our empirical analyses of the economic impact on the restaurant and hospitality industries with more credibility. The idea is that, just as good empirical work gives credence to theory, intuitive theoretical explanations give credence to empirical results.
Carrie Wade, Ph.D., MPH is the Director of Harm Reduction Policy and Senior Fellow at the R Street Institute.
Unfortunately many are left behind. Populations with lower levels of educational attainment, African Americans and, ironically, those with less disposable income have smoking rates two to three times that of the general population. In light of this, how can we help people for whom the abstinence-only message has failed? Harm reduction strategies can have a positive effect on the quality of life of smokers who cannot or do not wish to quit.
Harm reduction approaches recognize that reduction in risky behavior is one possible means to address public health goals. They take a pragmatic approach to the consequences of risk behaviors – focusing on short-term attainable goals rather than long-term ideals—and provide options beyond abstinence to decrease harm relative to the riskier behavior.
In economic terms, traditional public health approaches to drug use target supply and demand, which is to say they attempt to decrease the supply of a drug while also reducing the demand for it. But this often leads to more risky behaviors and adverse outcomes. For example, when prescription opioids were restricted, those who were not deterred from such an inconvenience switched to heroin; when heroin became tricky to smuggle, traffickers switched to fentanyl. We might predict the same effects when it comes to cigarettes.
Given this, since we know that the riskiest of behaviors, such as tobacco, alcohol and other drug use will continue—and possibly flourish in many populations—we should instead focus on ways to decrease the supply of the most dangerous methods of use and increase the supply of and demand for safer, innovative tools. This is the crux of harm reduction.
Like most innovation, harm reduction strategies for opioid and/or injection drug users were born out of a need. In the 1980s, sterile syringes were certainly not an innovative technology. However, the idea that clean needle distribution could put a quick end to the transmission of the Hepatitis B virus in Amsterdam was, and the success of this intervention was noticed worldwide.
Although clean needle distribution was illegal at the time, activists who saw a need for this humanitarian intervention risked jail time and high fines to reduce the risk of infectious disease transmission among injection drug users in New Haven and Boston. Making such programs accessible was not an easy thing to do. Amid fears that dangerous drug use may increase and the idea that harm reduction programs would tacitly endorse illegal activity, there was resistance in governments and institutions adopting harm reduction strategies as a public health intervention.
However, following a noticeable decrease in the incidence of HIV in this population, syringe exchange access expanded across the United States and Europe. At first, clean syringe access programs (SAPs) operated with the consent of the communities they served but as the idea spread, these programs received financial and logistical support from several health departments. As of 2014, there are over 200 SAPs operating in 33 states and the District of Columbia.
Time has shown that these approaches are wildly successful in their primary objective and enormously cost effective. In 2008, Washington D.C. allocated $650,000 to increase harm reduction services including syringe access. As of 2011, it was estimated that this investment had averted 120 cases of HIV, saving $44 million.
Seven studies conducted by leading scientific and governmental agencies from 1991 through 2001 have also concluded that syringe access programs result in a decrease in HIV transmission without residual effects of increased injection drug use. In addition, SAPs are correlated with increased entry into treatment and detox programs and do not result in increases in crime in neighborhoods that support these programs.
We know that some populations have a higher risk of smoking and of developing and dying from smoking-related diseases. With successful one-year quit rates hovering around 10 percent, harm reduction strategies can offer ways to transition smokers off of the most dangerous nicotine delivery device: the combustible cigarette.
To raise tobacco excise taxes.
These strategies have been shown to reduce the prevalence of tobacco use. People who quit smoking have a greater chance of remaining abstinent if they use NRTs. People exposed to pictorial health warnings are more likely to say they want to quit as a result. Countries with comprehensive advertising bans have a larger decrease in smoking rates compared to those without. Raising taxes has proven consistently to reduce consumption of tobacco products.
But, the effects of MPOWER programs are limited. Tobacco and smoking are often deeply ingrained in the culture and identity of communities. Studies repeatedly show that smoking is strongly tied to occupation and education, smokers’ self-identity and also the role that tobacco has in the economy and identity of the community.
As a practical matter, the abstinence approach is also limited by individual governmental laws. Article 13 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control recognizes that constitutional principles or laws may limit the capabilities of governments to implement these policy measures. In the United States, cigarettes are all but protected by the complexity of both the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and the Family Smoking Protection and Tobacco Control Act of 2009. This guarantees availability to consumers – ironically increasing the need of more reduced-risk nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes, heat-not-burn devices or oral Snus, all of which offer an alternative to combustible use for people who either cannot or do not wish to quit smoking.
Several regulatory agencies, including the FDA in the United States and Public Health England in the United Kingdom, recognize that tobacco products exist on a continuum of risk, with combustible products (the most widely used) being the most dangerous and non-combustible products existing on the opposite end of the spectrum. In fact, Public Health England estimates that e-cigarettes are at least 95% safer than combustible products and many toxicological and epidemiological studies support this assertion.
Of course for tobacco harm reduction to work, people must have an incentive to move away from combustible cigarettes.There are two equally important strategies to convince people to do so. First, public health officials need to acknowledge that e-cigarettes are less risky. Continued mixed messages from government officials and tobacco use prevention organizations confuse people regarding the actual risks from e-cigarettes. Over half of adults in the United States believe that nicotine is the culprit of smoking-related illnesses – and who can blame them when our current tobacco control strategies are focused on lowering nicotine concentrations and ridding our world of e-cigarettes?
The second is price. People who cannot or do not wish to quit smoking will never switch to safer alternatives if they are more, or as, expensive as cigarettes. Keeping the total cost of reduced risk products low will encourage people who might not otherwise consider switching to do so. The best available estimates show that e-cigarette demand is much more vulnerable to price increases than combustible cigarettes – meaning that smokers are unlikely to respond to price increases meant to dissuade them from smoking, and are less likely to vape as a means to quit or as a safer alternative.
Of course strategies to prevent smoking or encourage cessation should be a priority for all populations that smoke, but harm-reduction approaches—in particular with respect to smoking—play a vital role in decreasing death and disease in people who engage in such risky behavior. For this reason, they should always be promoted alongside abstinence approaches.
ICLE has released a white paper entitled Vapor products, harm reduction, and taxation: Principles, evidence and a research agenda, authored by ICLE Chief Economist, Eric Fruits.
The concept of tobacco harm reduction began in 1976 when Michael Russell, a psychiatrist and lecturer at the Addiction Research Unit of Maudsley Hospital in London, wrote: “People smoke for nicotine but they die from the tar.” Russell hypothesized that reducing the ratio of tar to nicotine could be the key to safer smoking.
In contrast, some public health advocates urge a precautionary approach in which the introduction and sale of e-cigarettes be limited or halted until the products are demonstrably safe.
The level of taxation on smoking-related products should directly correspond to the health risks that they present, to encourage less harmful consumption. Applying that logic, e-cigarettes should remain the least-taxed and conventional cigarettes the most, with heat-not-burn products falling between the two.
In contrast, the precautionary principle as well as principles of tax equity point toward the taxation of vapor products at rates similar to conventional cigarettes.
Analysis of tax policy issues is complicated by divergent—and sometimes obscured—intentions of such policies. Some policymakers claim that the objective of taxing nicotine products is to reduce nicotine consumption. Other policymakers indicate the objective is to raise revenues to support government spending. Often missed in the policy discussion is the effect of fiscal policies on innovation and the development and commercialization of harm-reducing products. Also, often missed are the consequences for current consumers of nicotine products, including smokers seeking to quit using harmful conventional cigarettes.
Policy decisions regarding taxation of vapor products should take into account both long-term fiscal effects, as well as broader economic and welfare effects. These effects might (or might not) suggest very different tax policies to those that have been enacted or are under consideration.
Apart from being a significant source of revenue, the cigarette taxes have been promoted as “sin” taxes to discourage consumption either because of externalities caused by smoking (increased costs for third-party health payers and health consequences) or paternalism. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in U.S., smoking-related illness in the U.S. costs more than $300 billion each year, including; (1) nearly $170 billion for direct medical care for adults and (2) more than $156 billion in lost productivity, including $5.6 billion in lost productivity due to secondhand smoke exposure.
The CDC’s cost estimates raise important questions regarding who bears the burden of smoking related illness. Much of the cost is borne by private insurance, which charges steeper premiums for customers who smoke. In addition, the CDC estimates reflect costs imposed by people who have smoked for decades—many of whom have now quit. A proper accounting of the costs vis-à-vis tax policy would measure the incremental discounted costs imposed by today’s smokers.
According to Levy et al. (2017), a strategy of replacing cigarette smoking with e-cigarettes would yield substantial life year gains, even under pessimistic assumptions regarding cessation, initiation, and relative harm. Increased longevity does not simply extend the individual’s years of retirement and reliance on government transfers but has impact on greater work effort and productivity together with higher tax payments on consumption.
Vapor products that cause less direct harm or have lower externalities (e.g., the absence of “second hand smoke”) should be subject to a lower “sin” tax. A cost-benefit analysis of the desired excise tax rate on vapor products would include reduced health spending as an offset against excise tax revenue that was foregone by putting a lesser rate on those products.
State and local governments in the U.S. collect more than $18 billion a year in tobacco taxes. While some jurisdictions earmark a portion of tobacco taxes for prevention and cessation efforts, in practice most tobacco taxes are treated by policymakers as general revenues to be spent in whatever way the legislative body determines.
In the long-run, the goals of reducing or eliminating consumption of the taxed good and generating revenues are in conflict. If the tax is successful in reducing consumption, it falls short in generating revenue. Similarly, if the tax succeeds in generating revenues, it falls short in reducing or eliminating consumption.
Substitutability is another consideration. An increase in the tax on spirits will result in an increase in beer and wine purchases. A high toll on a road will divert traffic to untolled streets that may not be designed for increased traffic volumes. Evidence from the U.S. and Europe indicate high or rising tobacco taxes in one jurisdiction will result in increased sales in bordering jurisdictions as well as increase illegal cross-jurisdiction sales or smuggling.
In addition, 22 countries outside of the U.S. have introduced taxation on e-cigarettes.
The effects of different types of taxation on usage and thus economic outcomes varies. Research to date finds a wide range of own price and cross price elasticities for e-cigarettes. While most researchers conclude that the demand for e-cigarettes is more elastic than the demand for combustible cigarettes, some studies find inelastic demand and some studies find highly elastic demand. Economic theory would point to e-cigarettes as a substitute for combustible cigarettes. Some empirical research supports this hypothesis, while others conclude the two products are complements.
In addition to e-cigarettes, little cigars and smokeless tobacco are also potential substitutes for cigarettes. The results from Zheng, et al. (2016) suggest increases in sales of little cigars and smokeless tobacco products would account for about 14 percent of the decline in cigarette sales associated with a hypothetical 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes. On the other hand, another study using a seemingly identical data set (Zheng, et al., 2017), suggests that sales of little cigars and smokeless tobacco would decrease in the face of an increase in cigarette prices.
The wide range of estimated elasticities calls into question the reliability of published estimates. As a nascent area of research, the policy debate would benefit from additional research that involves larger samples with better statistical power, reflects the dynamic nature of this relatively new product category, and accounts for the wide variety of vapor products.
More importantly, demand and supply conditions for e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and other electronic nicotine delivery products have been changing rapidly over the past few years—and are expected for rapidly change into the foreseeable future. Thus, estimates of demand parameters, such as elasticity and cross-price elasticity estimates, are almost certain to vary over time as users gain knowledge and experience and as products and suppliers enter the market.
Because the market for e-cigarettes and other vapor products is small and developing, the tax bearing capacity of these new product segments are untested and unknown. Moreover, current tax levels and prices could be also misleading based on the relatively sparse empirical data, in which case more data points and evaluation is needed. One can argue, given the slow growth rates of these segments in many markets, that current prices of e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn products are relatively high when compared to cigarettes and a tax or an increase on existing tax would slow down the segment growth or even lead to a decline.
Separately, the challenges in assessing a tax on electronic nicotine delivery products indicate the costs of collecting the tax, especially an excise tax, may be much higher than similar taxes levied on combustible cigarettes. In addition, as discussed above, heavy taxation of this relatively new industry would likely stifle innovation in a way that is contrary to the goal harm reduction.
Principles of harm reduction recognize that every proposal has uncertain outcomes as well as potential spillovers and unforeseen consequences. Nevertheless, the basic principle of harm reduction is a focus on safer rather than safe. Policymakers must make their decisions weighing the expected benefits and expected costs. With such high risks and costs associated with cigarette and other combustible use, taxes and regulations must be developed in an environment of uncertainty and with an eye toward a net reduction in harm, rather than an unattainable goal of zero harm.
On the positive side, Senator Warner introduces the idea that online platforms may be able to function as least-cost avoiders with respect to certain tortious behavior of their users. He advocates for platforms to implement technology that would help control the spread of content that courts have found violated certain rights of third-parties.
Yet, on other accounts — specifically the imposition of an “interoperability” mandate on platforms — his proposals risk doing more harm than good.
The interoperability mandate was included by Senator Warner in order to “blunt [tech platforms’] ability to leverage their dominance over one market or feature into complementary or adjacent markets or products.” According to Senator Warner, such a measure would enable startups to offset the advantages that arise from network effects on large tech platforms by building their services more easily on the backs of successful incumbents.
A prominent template for [imposing interoperability requirements] was in the AOL/Time Warner merger, where the FCC identified instant messaging as the ‘killer app’ – the app so popular and dominant that it would drive consumers to continue to pay for AOL service despite the existence of more innovative and efficient email and internet connectivity services. To address this, the FCC required AOL to make its instant messaging service (AIM, which also included a social graph) interoperable with at least one rival immediately and with two other rivals within 6 months.
But the AOL/Time Warner merger and the FCC’s conditions provide an example that demonstrates the exact opposite of what Senator Warner suggests. The much-feared 2001 megamerger prompted, as the Senator notes, fears that the new company would be able to leverage its dominance in the nascent instant messaging market to extend its influence into adjacent product markets.
Except, by 2003, despite it being unclear that AOL had developed interoperable systems, two large competitors had arisen that did not run interoperable IM networks (Yahoo! and Microsoft). In that same period, AOL’s previously 100% IM market share had declined by about half. By 2009, after eight years of heavy losses, Time Warner shed AOL, and by last year AIM was completely dead.
Not only was it not clear that AOL was able to make AIM interoperable, AIM was never able to catch up once better, rival services launched. What the conditions did do, however, was prevent AOL from launching competitive video chat services as it flailed about in the wake of the deal, thus forcing it to miss out on a market opportunity available to unencumbered competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo!
And all of this of course ignores the practical impossibility entailed in interfering in highly integrated technology platforms.
The AOL/Time Warner merger conditions are no template for successful tech regulation. Congress would be ill-advised to rely upon such templates for crafting policy around tech and innovation.
We find that after a patent library opens, local patenting increases by 17% relative to control regions that have Federal Depository Libraries. … [T]]he library boost ceases to be present after the introduction of the Internet. We find that library opening is also associated with an increase in local business formation and job creation [especially for small business -ed.], which suggests that the impact of libraries is not limited to patenting outcomes.
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid of bad data. Have a SPRITE. From the article published by self-described “data thugs“.
Scientific publications have not traditionally been accompanied by data, either during the peer review process or when published. Concern has arisen that the literature in many fields may contain inaccuracies or errors that cannot be detected without inspecting the original data. Here, we introduce SPRITE (Sample Parameter Reconstruction via Interative TEchniques), a heuristic method for reconstructing plausible samples from descriptive statistics of granular data, allowing reviewers, editors, readers, and future researchers to gain insights into the possible distributions of item values in the original data set.
Gig economy, it’s a good thing: 6.9% of all workers are independent contractors; 79% of them prefer their arrangement over a traditional job.
Gig economy, it’s a bad thing. Maybe.
[C]ensus divisions with relatively weak wage inflation also tend to have more “low-wage” informal FTE—that is, more hours of informal work performed at a wage that is less than formal pay.
Broetry. It’s a LinkedIn thing. I don’t get it.
It’s been six weeks since drug maker Allergan announced that it had assigned to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe the patents on Restasis, an Allergan drug challenged both in IPR proceedings and in Hatch-Waxman proceedings in federal district court. The unorthodox agreement was intended to shield the patents from IPR proceedings (and thus restrict the challenge to district court) as the Mohawks would seek to dismiss the IPR proceedings based on the tribe’s sovereign immunity. Although Allergan suffered a setback last week when the federal court invalidated the Restasis patents and, in dicta, expressed concern about the Allergan/Mohawk arrangement, several other entities are following Allergan’s lead and assigning patents to sovereigns in hopes of avoiding IPR proceedings.
As an example, in August, SRC Labs assigned about 40 computer technology patents to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe. Last week, the tribe, with SRC as co-plaintiff, filed lawsuits against Microsoft and Amazon for infringement of its data processing patents; the assignment of the SRC patents to the tribe could prevent a counter-challenge from Microsoft and Amazon in IPR proceedings. Similarly, Prowire LLC, who has sued Apple for infringement, has assigned the patent in question to MEC Resources, a company affiliated with three tribes in North Dakota. And state universities (whom the PTAB considers to be arms of the sovereign states, and thus immune to IPR challenges) are in discussions with lawyers about offering their sovereign immunity to patent owners as a way to shield patents in IPR proceedings.
These arrangements that attempt to avoid the IPR process and force patent challenges into federal courts are no surprise given the current unbalance in the IPR system. Critical differences exist between IPR proceedings and Hatch-Waxman litigation that have created a significant deviation in patent invalidation rates under the two pathways; compared to district court challenges, patents are twice as likely to be found invalid in IPR challenges.
The PTAB applies a lower standard of proof for invalidity in IPR proceedings than do federal courts in Hatch-Waxman proceedings. In federal court, patents are presumed valid and challengers must prove each patent claim invalid by “clear and convincing evidence.” In IPR proceedings, no such presumption of validity applies and challengers must only prove patent claims invalid by the “preponderance of the evidence.” In addition to the lower burden, it is also easier for challengers to meet the standard of proof in IPR proceedings. In federal court, patent claims are construed according to their “ordinary and customary meaning” to a person of ordinary skill in the art. In contrast, the PTAB uses the more lenient “broadest reasonable interpretation” standard; this more lenient standard can result in the PTAB interpreting patent claims as “claiming too much” (using their broader standard), resulting in the invalidation of more patents.
Finally, patent owners are often forced into duplicative litigation in both IPR proceedings and federal court litigation, leading to persistent uncertainty about the validity of their patents. Many patent challengers that are unsuccessful in invalidating a patent in district court may pursue subsequent IPR proceedings challenging the same patent, essentially giving patent challengers “two bites at the apple.” And if the challenger prevails in the IPR proceedings (which is easier to do given the lower standard of proof and broader claim construction standard), the PTAB’s decision to invalidate a patent can often “undo” a prior district court decision. Further, although both district court judgments and PTAB decisions are appealable to the Federal Circuit, the court applies a more deferential standard of review to PTAB decisions, increasing the likelihood that they will be upheld compared to the district court decision.
Courts are increasingly recognizing that certain PTAB practices are biased against patent owners, and, in some cases, violations of underlying law. The U.S. Supreme Court in Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee concluded that the broadest reasonable interpretation claim construction standard in IPR “increases the possibility that the examiner will find the claim too broad (and deny it)” and that the different claim construction standards in PTAB trials and federal court “may produce inconsistent results and cause added confusion.” However, the Court concluded that only Congress could mandate a different standard. Earlier this month, in Aqua Products, Inc. v. Matal, the Federal Circuit held that “[d]espite repeated recognition of the importance of the patent owner’s right to amend [patent claims] during IPR proceedings— by Congress, courts, and the PTO alike—patent owners largely have been prevented from amending claims in the context of IPRs.” And the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group, which questions whether IPR proceedings are even constitutional because they extinguish private property rights through a non-Article III forum without a jury.
As Courts and lawmakers continue to question the legality and wisdom of IPR to review pharmaceutical patents, they should remember that the relationship between drug companies and patients resembles a social contract. Under this social contract, patients have the right to reasonably-priced, innovative drugs and sufficient access to alternative drug choices, while drug companies have the right to earn profits that compensate for the risk inherent in developing new products and to a stable environment that gives the companies the incentive and ability to innovate. This social contract requires a balancing of prices (not too high to gouge consumers but not too low to insufficiently compensate drug companies), competition law (not so lenient that it ignores anticompetitive behavior that restricts patients’ access to alternative drugs, but not so strict that it prevents companies from intensely competing for profits), and most importantly in the context of IPR, patent law (not so weak that it fails to incentivize innovation and drug development, but not so strong that it enables drug companies to monopolize the market for an unreasonable amount of time). The unbalanced IPR process threatens this balance by creating significant uncertainty in pharmaceutical intellectual property rights. Uncertain patent rights will lead to less innovation in the pharmaceutical industry because drug companies will not spend the billions of dollars it typically costs to bring a new drug to market when they cannot be certain if the patents for that drug can withstand IPR proceedings that are clearly stacked against them. Indeed, last week former Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Redmond Michel acknowledged that IPR has contributed to “hobbling” our nation’s patent system, “discourag[ing] investment, R&D and commercialization.” And if IPR causes drug innovation to decline, a significant body of research predicts that consumers’ health outcomes will suffer as a result.

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