What makes the entire industry possible is that Canada only grants drug patent protection for five years, while America grants drug patent protection for twenty

What makes the entire industry possible is that Canada only grants drug patent protection for five years, while America grants drug patent protection for twenty. Therefore, there’s a fifteen-year period during which Canadian companies can legally manufacture generic drugs that are illegal to import into the USA. I suspect a lot of the talk about counterfeits and generics misses the third category, generics that are contraband in the USA because they are still under patent protection.