I&#x27;d much rather eliminate patent protections, but they do serve limited value.. the licensing restrictions for medications after 5 years at market is mainly to limit patent protections, while still providing some profit.  I didn&#x27;t say the company couldn&#x27;t make agreements for higher, or lower amounts via contract arrangement.<p>Patent protections, in this case, and many others actually exceed the value they provide to larger society, so I&#x27;m in favor of limiting them in this case as opposed to removing them entirely.  I understand there are a great amount of expense, but that is usually recouped within 3-5 years, and often in medication less than that.<p>Earlier competition will lead to better pricing structures that are less restrictive over marginalized costs.  In effect benefitting consumers.<p>The key point in the constitution behind copyright and patents are &quot;limited&quot; exclusivity... those limits don&#x27;t always have to be larger... sometimes they need to be smaller, and some industries aren&#x27;t the same as others.