Litigation costs are passed on to consumers
Wayne Brough, 24 - policy director for R Street’s Technology and Innovation team. He manages product flow on technology policy issues while also continuing his own research in competition policy and intellectual property. Prior to R Street, Wayne was the president of the Innovation Defense Foundation. Wayne received his PhD in economics from George Mason University, with a focus in industrial organization and public choice. “Congress Wants to Revive Patents but May Strangle Innovation and Damage Health Care Access Instead” R Street Institute (a public policy think tank), 4/3, https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/congress-wants-to-revive-patents-but-may-strangle-innovation-and-damage-health-care-access-instead/ //DH
A proliferation of patents in the life sciences and biotechnology fields could lead to more patent infringement lawsuits and costly legal battles over the boundaries of intellectual property rights. This situation was directly addressed by the Supreme Court in the wake of the litigation explosion in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Should the PERA’s new patent eligibility standards restore those circumstances, increased litigation costs may be passed on to consumers in the form of higher drug prices and reduced choices, further exacerbating affordability issues.
Any proposed expansion of patent eligibility for inventions involving natural products or biological molecules and processes could have significant implications for drug prices and affordability. By allowing broader patenting of naturally occurring compounds, genes, proteins, and biological processes, pharmaceutical companies would gain stronger exclusive rights over these fundamental building blocks of drug development. This may be particularly problematic in rapidly evolving fields like AI, precision medicine, and genetic testing, where the closer a patent is to an abstract idea or natural phenomenon, the more stifling its impact will be on the development of new inventions and applications.