Janice Cooper’s recent Maine Voices column (“Pharmaceutical patent exemption points to power of money in politics,” April 28) mischaracterizes our industry’s concern regarding Maine’s patent troll legislation, and deserves clarification.

Ms. Cooper claims our concerns are focused on the cost of medicine. Instead, our concern is motivated by ensuring states do not unnecessarily interfere with the U.S. patent enforcement system. State intervention in the uniform regulatory system of patent oversight will create a patchwork of non-uniform laws that add costs and complexities to the patent system, thus harming incentives for innovation.

Our position protects innovations that benefit patients, but we are not alone in our concern. A wide variety of innovative industries has begun speaking out regarding overreaching state legislation.

In fact, we support revisiting the legislation in Maine next session to hopefully broaden the safe harbors in the bill, to ensure the broadest protections for all legitimate businesses to enforce their federally protected property rights.

A one-size-fits-all patent approach accomplishes little, and would undermine patent holders’ ability to enforce their rights by filing and litigating a patent suit. This could impose a substantial burden on our courts’ ability to enforce legitimate patents effectively and efficiently, potentially decreasing the value of patents and weakening incentives for biomedical innovation.

Sweeping changes to our existing patent system can have the implication that every patent holder is a patent troll, a position that harms patients in the end.

The patent system is the bedrock of the U.S. economy, and recognition that the reforms should not apply to certain unique proceedings for biopharmaceutical patents is justified.

This helps to sustain America’s role as the worldwide leader in biopharmaceutical research and is critical to our industry’s ability to make the significant, long-term investments necessary to develop new therapies for the patients who need them.


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