The Downfall Of Invention: A Broken Patent System; Huffington Post, 8/16/16

Tahir Amin, Huffington Post; The Downfall Of Invention: A Broken Patent System:

"The cost of dozens of brand-name drugs have nearly doubled in just the past five years. Public outrage over drug prices extends from Capitol Hill to the presidential candidates to patients. In response, pharmaceutical executives are spending more on lobbying and marketing. Yet for all this attention, most of the proposed solutions for reducing prescription drug costs—tougher negotiations, appeals for transparent R&D costs or investigations into insurers—miss one of the primary sources of the problem: the way we award patents.

Today, too many drug makers receive patents for unmerited and unjust reasons...

Not surprisingly, the pharma industry employs a variety of stall tactics that make it virtually impossible for affordable, generic drugs to enter the U.S. market. In what’s called “pay-for-delay,” for example, patent owners pay off generic manufacturers to wait before entering the market, a practice that could violate antitrust laws...

It’s time to restore the U.S. patent system to its original purpose – to protect and incentivize invention, not innovation."