When President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, he and others hailed it as a significant achievement. Aside from all the money devoted to climate change initiatives, the provision that stood out the most was the ability of the government to “negotiate” drug prices for Medicare. In reality, there is no negotiation. The government sets the price. The drug company can either accept what the government will pay or pay excise taxes if it doesn’t. 

Now, the Biden administration is coming after drug patent licenses, claiming it has the authority under a law passed in 1980, the Bayh-Dole Act, also known as the Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act. Enacted during a time of stagflation — high interest rates and inflation, sluggish economic growth — the law provided recipients of federal research funding to have the option of retaining patents on the inventions arising out of the research, including drugs and medication.