What are the challenges in developing information around mixing-and-matching COVID-19 vaccines and therapies?

By Rachel Sachs, Jacob S. Sherkow, Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, and Nicholson Price

The FDA has now authorized three vaccines and several treatments (including both monoclonal antibodies and small-molecule drugs) for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. But the initial evidence supporting these products’ introduction into the market did not include information about how they might work together. Nevertheless, information about mixing-and-matching COVID-19 vaccines and therapies would be highly valuable not only to physicians and their patients, who must already make decisions about what treatment options to pursue under conditions of uncertainty (if the treatments are available), but also for policymakers, who want to know what products to prioritize for investment. Why is it so difficult to obtain this information? How can policymakers encourage its development? 

Jessica Litman: Who Cares What Edward Rogers Thought About Trademark Law?

Professor Jessica Litman has a fascinating forthcoming book chapter on the history of the Lanham Act and the influence of Edward S. Rogers, "Edward S. Rogers, the Lanham Act, and the Common Law. " Litman tells the history of the drafting of the Lanham Act of 1946 through the lens of Edward S. Rogers, detailing how his advocacy and drafting work influenced the final statutory text. 

Readers may be surprised to learn that Litman started research on the topic as a law student in the 1980s, while writing a student note on trade dress infringement. She went into the stacks of the Columbia Law Library and started reading bound copies of legislative history. She noticed it seemed like Rogers was everywhere, from 1932 all that way up to 1946, and that the chairs of the committees were deferring to him.  That was really interesting, she thought.  But after the note was done, she kind of forgot about it.

Now, forty years later, Litman is a professor at the very institution Rogers attended, the University of Michigan. She was surprised to find no one seemed to remember Rogers had been at Michigan, even though he "earned three law degrees and was a member of the adjunct faculty for 18 years" (3). In this book chapter, Litman is making up for that, returning to the topic of Rogers and his legacy. She's found her notes from 1981. She's read everything he wrote, and all his cases, starting in 1895 all the way until his death in 1949.

The result is a remarkably personal history of Rogers' involvement in the development of trademark law, full of contemporary details and selected quotes from Rogers' own writings. Litman's chapter, which engages extensively with the secondary literature as well as the primary sources, adds a tremendous amount to this history and to the many excellent recent articles touching on this subject, including The Lost Unfair Competition Law by Christine Haight Farley, The Erie/Sears/Compco Squeeze: Erie's Effects Upon Unfair Competition and Trade Secret Law by Sharon Sandeen, In the Shadow of the Trade-Mark Cases: The 1881 Trademark Act and the Supreme Court by Zvi Rosen, Mark McKenna's book chapter, Trademark Law's Faux Federalism, and many others.

My interview with Litman is transcribed in this post. The interview significantly deepened my knowledge of the subject and I am excited to share it with readers.