Drug prices are high because of over-patenting in the status quo.

Drug prices remain a top concern for many Americans, with one in four people reporting difficulty affording their prescriptions. Politicians are taking note, with President Biden recently commenting, “We pay more for prescription drugs than any — any nation on Earth.”

In response, the White House’s new budget includes several policies that aim at the high cost of drugs. The proposed reforms include the authority for Medicare to negotiate prices and requirements for drugmakers to pay rebates to Medicare for treatments that increase in price faster than the inflation rate.

While these reforms focus on prices, they fail to address the real source of high costs and the pharmaceutical industry’s power: America’s outdated drug patent system.

Drugmakers have been quietly gaming the nation’s patent system for decades to lock in inflated prices through manipulative patenting practices.

Patent law says that if you invent and successfully patent a product, no one else can make or sell it for 20 years. Fair enough. But drugmakers have learned to work the system in their favor by creating “thickets” of patents that stifle competition and extend their monopoly power past the 20-year mark. This multitude of patents creates a dense jungle of legal protection — in some cases, hundreds of patents for a single drug — based on slightly tweaked formulas, dosages, indications or other dubious claims of uniqueness. Prices remain artificially high as the patent thickets keep low-cost competing versions of top-selling medicines off the market for years.

Over-patenting allows drugmakers to sue would-be competitors for patent infringement and extract payments from settlements. And with patent monopolies on seven out of 10 of America’s blockbuster drugs expected to expire this decade, the industry increasingly relies on patent thickets to safeguard their profits. This systemic, under-the-table patent abuse is gouging patients — of all ages — who need affordable medications. It’s also a critical reason prescription drug spending in the United States is poised to reach nearly a trillion dollars in the next 10 years.