New bill would end Native American “sovereign immunity” for patents

Enlarge / US Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) at a hearing earlier this year. (credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Allergan's move to stop its patents from being reviewed by handing them off to a Native American tribe is winning support from few people outside the drug company. Now one lawmaker is seeking to ban it.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) has introduced a bill (PDF) that would head off Allergan’s strategy without waiting to see whether the judges at the Patent Trial and Appeals Board will even approve it.

“This is one of the most brazen and absurd loopholes I’ve ever seen, and it should be illegal,” McCaskill said last week in a statement to a pharmaceutical lobby group.