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by hn_acker
813 days ago
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Off-topic, but your comment reminded me of evergreening of medical drug patents [1] (example at [2]): when a pharmaceutical company's patent on a drug is close to expiring, the patent holder makes a minor change to the drug, patents the changed version, lets the patent on the unchanged version expire, and uses the new patent to sue anyone who makes or markets a generic version of the old drug. The patent on the changed version of the drug effectively covers the old version. The changed version of the drug is simultaneously different enough from the unchanged version that the pharmaceutical company can successfully apply for a new patent from the USPTO and similar enough that anyone who wants to make a biosimilar of the unchanged version can still be sued for patent infringement. The drug patent abusers eat their cakes and still have them. The new patents shouldn't be granted in the first place, since one of the conditions of getting a patent on an invention is that the invention be novel over what has already been invented. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening [2] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/10/thanks-to-evergreening-a... |
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Wow thanks for the rabbit hole. Clicked around and found “me-too drugs”[1]:
> a medication that is similar to a pre-existing drug, usually by making minor modifications to the prototype […] used to treat conditions for which drugs already exist
Yep. Same playbook for sure.
> The changed version of the drug is simultaneously different enough from the unchanged version that the pharmaceutical company can successfully apply for a new patent from the USPTO and similar enough that anyone who wants to make a biosimilar of the unchanged version can still be sued for patent infringement.
Beyond! This is like Soviet levels of kafkaesque rules. All in the free market country of USA.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me-too_drug