This IP Day, Thank The Innovators

Today (April 26) is World Intellectual Property (IP) Day, a time to celebrate game-changing innovations and the legal system supporting IP. Thanks to the U.S.’s stringent protections for patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, entrepreneurs are free to tinker and toil without fear that copycats will rip off their latest, greatest ideas. Unfortunately, some policymakers and pundits take IP protections for granted and argue for legal changes that would make it easier to invalidate patents without the full due process of the court system. Others mistakenly believe that government research spending could serve as an adequate substitute for IP protections. The simple truth is that IP law is the easiest and best way to ensure that innovators continue to make lives better, safer, and more meaningful. We should all be grateful for laws acknowledging and protecting the ingenuity of the human mind.

It’s all too easy to hear the phrase “intellectual property” and think of some boring court procedure or term of trade in a merger. But, behind the more than 3 million worldwide annual patent applications lie talented people trying to make the world healthier, safer, and more entertaining. One great example is Indian American chemist Sumita Mitra, who completely transformed the process of making dental fillers. As Inventors Digest contributor Reid Creager notes, “For centuries, dentists relied on flawed combinations when making dental fillers—either too weak, too unattractive, or both—until Mitra and her team got it just right…[by] figuring that developing nanoparticle technology for use as dental fillers could resolve most of the problems and provide a universal filling material.” She and her colleagues accumulated dozens of patents in the U.S. and E.U. and got to work ensuring that patients with debilitating cavities were given the best treatment possible. Mitra is pleased to see countless smiles restored and urges future generations of innovators to think outside the box and “try out their ideas.”

As long as countries such as the U.S. continue to champion strong IP protections, innovators like Mitra will be able to feel secure that their hard work will be protected. Unfortunately, a growing chorus in Congress has called for the weakening of patent law. Lawmakers such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) bemoan that pharmaceutical companies are pursuing scores of patents (“patent thickets”) on every aspect of a given drug in order to keep prices high and competition low. By their logic, breaking these thickets via patent invalidation would result in lower drug prices and increased healthcare access. 

A brief glance at the pharmaceutical market shows this is far from true.

For example, there are multiple drugs on the market that can treat macular degeneration for diabetics at risk of vision loss. While medications such as Eylea and Lucentis can be quite expensive (~$1,800 per dose), Avastin is about $70 a dose and similarly effective in treating age-related macular degeneration. But all of these medications, including Avastin, are enveloped in “patent thickets” and should therefore be precluded from competition if Sens. Warren and Leahy are to be believed. The reality is that price variations and market dynamics in the healthcare market have far more to do with who is prescribing and paying than anything else. If doctors prefer the pricey drugs and know that Medicare reimbursements will keep consumers from paying list prices, Eylea and Lucentis will continue to be high-priced.

Without patent protection, though, companies will have little incentive to bring life-saving medications and vaccines to the market in the first place. After all, it costs an astounding $2 billion to bring a medication to the market. Without patents, entrepreneurs would refuse to shoulder these costs and maladies such as blindness and tooth decay would go untreated in millions of patients.

Let’s not take these innovations for granted and work toward a strong, responsive IP protection system. We have much to reflect on, and be thankful for, this World IP Day.

David Williams is president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.