Talha M. Syed
![[candidate photo]](picture.jpg)
S.J.D. Candidate
Fellow, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Graduate Fellow, Weatherhead Center Project on Justice, Welfare & Economics
Graduate Fellow, LL.M. Advisor
| Office: | LILC 447 |
| Phone: | (917) 302-7038 |
| Status: | In Residence |
| Email: | tsyed@law.harvard.edu |
Dissertation
The Legal-Institutional Economics of Pharmaceutical Innovation: A Critical Assessment of Strong Patent Protection & Alternative Innovation Policies
My dissertation seeks to challenge and provide alternatives to “strong patent protection” as the dominant innovation policy for pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) in the United States and, increasingly, throughout the world. My critical evaluation of this innovation regime proceeds in the following broad stages. First, I examine the pharmaceutical-specific version of the “public goods” argument that undergirds the economic justification of IP rights, in light of both the public-private institutional matrix in which contemporary pharmaceutical innovation actually takes place and the economics of patent protection in the pharmaceutical industry. This examination reveals a number of significant flaws in current justifications and arrangements and leads to two sets of reforms options. The first keeps in place patent protection as the innovation policy of choice, but alters its form and deploys supplementary regulatory measures to address its various costs and rent-seeking distortions. The second explores the case for an alternative innovation policy, drawing on the earlier examination of the institutional context of drug development, as well as on the IP-specific and more general institutional economics theoretical literature on incentives and information.
Fields of Research and Supervisors
- Theories of Intellectual Property and Law & Technology, with Professor William W. Fisher, Harvard Law School, Overall Faculty Supervisor
- Critical Jurisprudence and Law & Economics, with Professor Duncan Kennedy
- Social Theory and Political Philosophy, with Professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Additional Research Interests
- Legal Theory (with an emphasis on Realist and post-Realist legal thought)
- Institutional Economics
- Jurisprudence (particularly the relationship between analytical jurisprudence and "American critical legalism")
Education
- Harvard Law School, S.J.D. Candidate 2002-Present
- Harvard Law School, LL.M. Program 2001-2002
- University of Victoria, LL.B. 2000
- University of Western Ontario, B.A. (Honors) 1995
Appointments and Fellowships
- Petrie-Flom Center, 2006-2008, Fellow in Health Policy, Biotechnology, & Bioethics
- Harvard College, 2004-2005, Teaching Fellow
- Harvard Law School, 2004-2005, Graduate Program Fellow, LL.M. Advisor
- Harvard College, 2003-2004, Teaching Fellow
- Harvard Law School, 2004-2005, Graduate Program Fellow, Graduate Forum Co-Coordinator
- Harvard College, 2002-2003, Teaching Fellow
- Kennedy School of Government, 2002-2003, Teaching Fellow
Representative Publications
- Patent Law, Drugs & the Health Crisis in the Developing World (with William. W. Fisher) (forthcoming Stanford University Press)
- Global Justice in Pharmaceutical Allocation & Spending (with William W. Fisher) (forthcoming University of California, Davis Law Review)
- Patent Law & Innovation in the Life Sciences (forthcoming white paper, The Berkman Center for Internet & Society)