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This paper presents an overview of several issues concerning licensing intellectual property in or from the United States. We address (1) circumstances requiring government approval of an intellectual property licence; (2) licensing of intellectual property created with the help of government grants; and (3) the value of a patent licence in litigation settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian Child Welfare Act is a landmark piece of legislation, passed in response to a long history of Native American children being alienated from their families and communities. The Act has far reaching implications for social workers and human service professionals who have any involvement with Native American children or families. Still, many professionals are either unaware of the Act all together or do not know how to effectively implement its provisions in their practice. This lack of awareness and other factors such as inadequate funding have meant that the Act has never realized its full potential to reduce the number of children in out-of-home care. In order to increase awareness about the Act and to make its implementation in day to day social services more practical, this article provides background information on the factors leading to the Act, information on the law itself, and recommendations for practitioners, administrators, and students in the human services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research tool patents that cover technology used to discover drugs and drug candidates, are an important source of revenue for many biotechnology companies and academic research institutions in the U.S. Biologic research tools are products and processes used in experimental research, such as drug discovery. Examples of research tool patents include patents directed to receptors or other peptides used in screens to identify ligand-binding activity; patents directed to enzymes and patents directed to nondiagnostic and nontherapeutic antibodies used in screening assays. Thus, advancement in many fields is centered on research tools, and the use of biologic research tools is typically a first step in the chain of modern drug discovery. There are two competing policy interests in patent law: an inventor's interest to have exclusive rights to his or her invention, and the interest of the public to benefit from the progress of knowledge and technology. The U.S. Congress enacted the Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984 to balance these competing interests in the pharmaceutical area. Three principal components of the Act are patent term extension, Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) filing and a research exemption.

Advances in understanding the effects of early education have benefited public policy and developmental science. Although preschool has demonstrated positive effects on life-course outcomes, limitations in knowledge on program scale, subgroup differences, and dosage levels have hindered understanding. We report the effects of the Child-Parent Center Education Program on indicators of well-being up to 25 years later for more than 1400 participants. This established, publicly funded intervention begins in preschool and provides up to 6 years of service in inner-city Chicago schools. Relative to the comparison group receiving the usual services, program participation was independently linked to higher educational attainment, income, socioeconomic status (SES), and health insurance coverage, as well as lower rates of justice-system involvement and substance abuse. Evidence of enduring effects was strongest for preschool, especially for males and children of high school dropouts. The positive influence of four or more years of service was limited primarily to education and SES. Dosage within program components was mostly unrelated to outcomes. Findings demonstrate support for the enduring effects of sustained school-based early education to the end of the third decade of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Therapies originating from traditional medical systems are widely used by patients in both India and the United States. The first India-US Workshop on Traditional Medicine was held in New Delhi, India, on March 3 and 4, 2016, as a collaboration between the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) of the Government of India, the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health, and the Office of Global Affairs, US Department of Health and Human Services. It was attended by Indian and US policymakers, scientists, academics, and medical practitioners from various disciplines. The workshop provided an opportunity to open a dialogue between AYUSH and NCI to identify promising research results and potential topics for Indo-US collaboration. Recommendations that emerged from the workshop underlined the importance of applying rational and scientific approaches for drug development; standardizing traditional medicine products and procedures to ensure reliability and reproducibility; promotion of collaboration between Indian traditional medicine practitioners and researchers and US researchers; greater integration of evidence-based traditional medicine practices with mainstream medical practices in India; and development of training programs between AYUSH and NCI to facilitate crosstraining. Several positive developments took place after the thought-provoking deliberations.