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Comment by monochromatic | Hacker News Reader

>Meanwhile MalCorp found a way to tweak the law so its patents would never expire. It proposed a special amendment, just for patent pools, that said: Any time any part of any patent changes, the entire pool is treated as a new invention under U.S. law.

This is a little silly. Patent law isn’t like copyright law. The term has never changed appreciably.

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I've always wondered about this. Why is it that I've never heard of large corporations trying to lobby patent law into extending, much like how it happened over and over with copyright law? Had this battle already happened and I just never heard about it, or is there something in the law (or norms/culture surrounding it) that makes people never consider doing so?

Some "life science" companies, in particular pharmaceutical, can extend the life of their patents by 5 years in some jurisdictions (at least here in Europe). This is called a Supplementary Protection Certificate [0] and is subject to certain conditions (e.g. clinical trials took a long time).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplementary_protection_certi...

EDIT: typo

It's not exactly an extension though--it's that they didn't get the benefit of the early part of their patent term because of regulatory delays, so they get to pad the back end to make up for that.

It does happen with drugs in the US, but in a roundabout way. In a nutshell, the original manufacturer releases a new version of their product with a new patent and it's existence makes the manufacture of the old clones illegal unless they go through an independent regulatory process.

I don't know much about drug regulation, but that sounds crazy. Do you have more info?

I am sure it refers to drug patent evergreening, which is a real and prevalent phenomenon.

Fat wallet companies can and do game the system. They patent every new minor feature, creating a rolling portfolio of patents that collectively never expire.

It may be true that individually, each patent is mostly bullshit -- slight re-wording of prior art. But do you feel like a lucky punk, as an individual or small outfit, going up against EvilCorp's $1200/hr cap'n of their debate team in HS lawyers, a dozen times over five years? (with non-technical judges & juries as the final arbiter of your fate)

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