Bogus Patents: it ain't just software
I've previously argued that software patents make little sense in several dimensions.
An article in the Economist this week discusses a trend in which generic drug companies are challenging the patents of large branded drug companies. This may be in part because:
"branded firms try to extend their lucrative monopolies by filing less rigorous secondary patents designed `to block generics'"
and some branded companies are settling out of court rather than go to trial, perhaps believing
"its patent was mistakenly awarded, perhaps because the purported breakthrough was too minor or obvious"
The article concludes
“Branded pharmaceutical firms have been stretching the limits of what deserves a patent, and the courts are just catching up.”
Fancy that.
The patent office sounds to have been awarding patents on 'inventions' that are obvious or at best minor tweaks. Where have we heard that before?
And the possibility of a settlement rather than a drawn out court case incents the challenges in a way I described in a post on business patents . Again, the Economist:
Regardless of the outcome, the case raises an important legal question: how can a firm like Apotex bring a generic drug to market when others own a perfectly valid patent for it? The answer is that the potential prize is simply so large these days that the reward outweighs the risk of legal defeat.
This can be said for large drug companies with strong balance sheets, but it is hard for a small software company without significant assets to consider the risk of legal defeat as a minor issue.