A Supreme Victory for IP Balance
“In a closely watched patent case, the Supreme Court on Monday gave drug companies broad leeway to use other companies’ patented compounds in their own research, even at the earliest stages of new drug development.
‘For drug innovators and patients, this is enormous good news,’ said E. Joshua Rosenkranz, a partner at New York’s Heller Ehrman who argued the case for Merck. ‘It means that researchers will not have to sit on their hands for a decade when they have discovered a promising drug, but rather, without skipping a beat, can conduct the experiments they need to conduct to make sure the drug gets to sick patients as soon after patent expiration as possible.’”
