The U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to grant temporary monopolies "for limited Times to Authors and Inventors" in order to "promote the Progress of Scienc

The U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to grant temporary monopolies "for limited Times to Authors and Inventors" in order to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." So any patents that extend beyond the limited times needed to incentivize progress would seem to be unconstitutional. Congress controls all the levers here. They need to reign in this patent abuse. Instead they've allowed the big pharmaceutical companies to use a steady stream of minor tweaks to existing patents to sue their competition into oblivion.