Drug, Medical Device Patents Pose Knotty Problems

The recent outcry about the pricing of EpiPens reinforces what we already know: Monopolies, particularly those that produce highly needed items, can do harm, even evil.

One problem with the country’s patent system over much of our history is that patent rights have been binary. Either an invention has a valid patent or it doesn’t, but there are precious few degrees of variation between those extremes.

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