Is 'evergreening' a cause for concern? A legal perspective

Abstract

A number of fundamental principles (and misconceptions) of patent law and of the system for granting and enforcing patents lie at the heart of the so-called 'evergreening' debate on patent protection for pharmaceutical products. The purpose of this paper is to consider 'evergreening' from a legal perspective and to evaluate the extent to which the patent system operates to safeguard against the claimed abuses. In the authors' view the allegation that pharmaceutical companies have been able to delay substantially the entry of generic competition by 'evergreening' many of their patents simply does not reflect the reality and mischaracterises how the patent system operates in the context of technological innovation. A patent over an improvement does not restrict a generic company from launching a competitor of the originator product and, in the UK at least, the procedure and attitude of the court is conducive to the speedy and cost-effective challenge of 'weak' patents.