"Cicilline’s bill assumes that small improvements in medications are unworthy of further patent protections..."

Cicilline Patent Bill Will Prove Devastating to Advancing Improvements in Medicine



This is what makes legislation that weakens patent protections on medical innovation so troubling, and so dangerous. The latest attempt at an end-around patent rights came this week from a bill introduced by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI). Cicilline wants to inject Congress into the role of the U.S. Patent Office, and nullify patent protections for incremental yet critical improvements in existing medications. Deriding drug makers as “product hopping,” Cicilline’s bill assumes that small improvements in medications are unworthy of further patent protections that give the inventors exclusive rights to the medications they create. His goal is to speed up the timetable by which drugs enter the market less expensively through a generic equivalent. If successful, Cicilline’s bill will be nothing short of devastating to future medical innovation, and serve as a powerful headwind against the race for new cures and treatments.