Imagine for a moment that you are an inventor of a revolutionary product. Once this product is on the market, it will change the way we Americans do business.

Imagine further that you invested a great deal of time and money in the product, but did so knowing that the end result would more than payback your research and development. And so, with product in hand, you rush to the patent office to patent this product.

Once there, you are informed that your patent will effectively expire within 5 years, opening the doors for competitors to profiteer opff of your hard work and research. They will, of course, pay a royalty, but that royalty will be a rather small portion of the profits you might have otherwise realized.

That is exactly the scenario that plays out in American drug companies year after year. And it is one cause among many for the high level of inflation in the prices of these drugs. Millions, sometimes BILLIONS of dollars go into the funding of the research and development of these drugs, and companies operate under the knowledge that they must recoup their costs within a time limit rather than enjoying control of the product THEY created in the first place.

Government's solution has been to SHORTEN the time before these patents are released to generic drug manufacturers, but I believe that is the wrong approach to lowering drug costs. We should EXTEND the time for these patents so that drug companies aren't under the gun to reduce profits.

A patent represents an acknowledgement of one's intellectual property. You can take apart a patented object, you can dissect it, you can examine it, and you can make an object that performs the exact same functions. But you can't duplicate it completely! To do so is a form of theft.

A better solution to lowering drug prices would be to give the manufacturer of the original drug complete control over the release of competing drugs. They could sell manufacturing rights to other competing companies, but would be able to ensure quality control guidelines that aren't enforced by the current laws. This would result in greater efficacy of generic drugs and would return the prescription drug industry to the free market where it belongs rather than the realm of socialized medicine, where it is currently headed.

Drug makers, like any other inventors, deserve protection of their intellectual property from theft. And unless we are willing to give it to them, prices will continue to skyrocket out of control.