Recent developments in pharmaceutical patent litigation

The need for affordable prescription drugs from generic drug makers versus incentives for pharmaceutical companies to research and develop future drugs to treat current and emerging diseases poses a precarious balancing act for lawmakers and the courts. Recently enacted legislation and court decisions continue to walk the tightrope between two public needs: providing generic drug alternatives to name brand pharmaceuticals and promoting future drug research and development from pharmaceutical companies. All this must be done while allowing the pharmaceutical industry the same intellectual property rights as awarded to other technologies and preventing pharmaceutical inventions from being held to much higher standards than in other arts to be awarded patent protection.