US supreme court limits patent rights

The US supreme court has ruled that the authorised sale of a patented product anywhere in the world ‘exhausts’ the patent holder’s rights over that product, regardless of any restrictions the holder purports to impose. The decision stems from the case of a company that refills and re-sells patented printer cartridges, but has broader implications, especially for pharmaceuticals.

Some observers worry that drug companies will refuse to sell medicines at low prices in lower-income markets, or for research uses, owing to concerns about pharmaceutical arbitrage, whereby drugs are bought cheaply and then re-imported or sold on at high markups.