3 ms·
>Pharmaceuticals are a good example The pharmaceutical industry also provides us with plenty of opportunities to pick on them. Take a drug that's about to go o
by fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
>Pharmaceuticals are a good example
The pharmaceutical industry also provides us with plenty of opportunities to pick on them. Take a drug that's about to go off-patent, make a trivial change to their process, get a fast-track approval from FDA (because it's essentially the same), and a new patent (because it's new and improved!). Competitors play this game too, making copycat drugs which are very similar enough for marketing, but just different enough to deserve their own patent. I'm having a hard time sympathizing with any pharmaceutical company. Disclaimer, I'm almost done reading Goldacre's new book.
- jonpeda 14y ago> deserve their own patent. What does this mean? If A is patented, A+B is covered by A's patent AND B's patent. The only way to avoid A is to use a non-patented yet critical invention. The inventor of A should have included any such thing as one of their patent claims.