Wampum: A Different "Damages Cap"

Patent law provides drug manufacturers a monopoly on the production and sale of medicines they invent for a period of twenty years. Patent protection provides monopoly profits to the brand name manufacturers as an incentive to invest in the research and development of new products. While the monopoly is supposed to last only twenty years, the drug companies have found ways to extend their period of monopoly profits. One of the ways to retain monopoly profits for periods exceeding 20 years is to file patent infringement suits against generic manufacturers. The mere filing of such a suit provides an automatic 30 month extension (12.5%) of patent rights regardless of whether or not the suit has any merit.