Pea-n-Me
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2004
- Messages
- 41,394
I thought this was a good article about why prescription drug costs are so high, and whether the results of a patent case (on a speedometer, of all things) may indirectly have an effect on whether manufacturers of prescription drugs will be able to continue to keep their prices high, or whether there will be a way to lower them - using generic drugs - via newer rules for patent challenges put into by Congress more recently.
It should be interesting to follow.
https://www.statnews.com/2016/04/22/supreme-court-patent-case-drugs/
“In patent law, much turns on the nitty-gritty details. There’s nothing grittier than the issue” raised in the Supreme Court case, Robin Feldman, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, told STAT. “It matters a lot. It matters a lot for pharma.”
The consequences, for pharmaceuticals and any other industry that relies heavily on patents, could be huge.
Ronald Mann, a Columbia law professor writing for SCOTUSblog, said “the case has the potential to be a landmark, setting the practical boundaries of patent validity for decades to come.”
Patents are extremely important to brand-name drug companies because they allow those companies to exclusively sell the medicines they develop for a set period of time, before generics can enter the market offering a similar drug at a much lower price.
During that period, the companies can charge whatever price they want (or at least whatever the market will pay) and, therefore, they say, earn back the millions and millions of dollars they spent developing the drug. Then, the companies say, they reinvest that money into more research to find the next breakthrough treatment.
At stake in the Supreme Court case is a new process for challenging patents. In 2011, Congress passed a law that created a new procedure — called inter partes review — for patent challenges to be heard by an appeals board inside the US Patent and Trademark Office. Previously, patent challenges were typically addressed in costly and time-consuming litigation.
In court litigation, patents are presumed to be valid and understood by their “plain and ordinary meaning.” But in these inter partes reviews, as established by the administration, patents are interpreted more broadly.
For drug makers, that’s a problem. Patent holders want the standard for review to be narrow. The more specific their claim is considered to be, the harder it will be for competitors to argue that the claim is not novel and important. They also want the same standard to apply in both the courts and the appeals board.
It’s a subtle difference, but an important one."
It should be interesting to follow.
https://www.statnews.com/2016/04/22/supreme-court-patent-case-drugs/
“In patent law, much turns on the nitty-gritty details. There’s nothing grittier than the issue” raised in the Supreme Court case, Robin Feldman, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, told STAT. “It matters a lot. It matters a lot for pharma.”
The consequences, for pharmaceuticals and any other industry that relies heavily on patents, could be huge.
Ronald Mann, a Columbia law professor writing for SCOTUSblog, said “the case has the potential to be a landmark, setting the practical boundaries of patent validity for decades to come.”
Patents are extremely important to brand-name drug companies because they allow those companies to exclusively sell the medicines they develop for a set period of time, before generics can enter the market offering a similar drug at a much lower price.
During that period, the companies can charge whatever price they want (or at least whatever the market will pay) and, therefore, they say, earn back the millions and millions of dollars they spent developing the drug. Then, the companies say, they reinvest that money into more research to find the next breakthrough treatment.
At stake in the Supreme Court case is a new process for challenging patents. In 2011, Congress passed a law that created a new procedure — called inter partes review — for patent challenges to be heard by an appeals board inside the US Patent and Trademark Office. Previously, patent challenges were typically addressed in costly and time-consuming litigation.
In court litigation, patents are presumed to be valid and understood by their “plain and ordinary meaning.” But in these inter partes reviews, as established by the administration, patents are interpreted more broadly.
For drug makers, that’s a problem. Patent holders want the standard for review to be narrow. The more specific their claim is considered to be, the harder it will be for competitors to argue that the claim is not novel and important. They also want the same standard to apply in both the courts and the appeals board.
It’s a subtle difference, but an important one."
