Patent Tribunal Comes Under Fire in Congress Drug Cost Fight (1)

Lawmakers are calling out a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tribunal favored by generic drugmakers over policy they claim blocks pharmaceutical competition, urging the agency to take action amid an ongoing fight to curb prices on prescription medications.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has “in recent years, begun frequently denying petitions” to reconsider the validity of already-granted intellectual property rights “for reasons not based on the merits, which has made it more difficult to curtail anti-competitive practices by prescription drug companies,” senators and representatives from both sides of the aisle wrote in a Thursday letter to the Patent and ...