# The Innovation/Access Tradeoff, Part 1000

## TL;DR

The paper discusses how patent thickets and product hopping in the pharmaceutical industry can harm consumers without promoting innovation.

## Contribution

It highlights how anticompetitive behaviors like patent thickets and product hopping lack innovation justification and proposes ways to address them.

## Key findings

- Patent thickets and product hopping often harm consumers without innovation justification.
- These behaviors can be addressed through legal and policy interventions.
- The paper emphasizes the need for balancing innovation and access in pharmaceutical markets.

## Abstract

From the perspective of intellectual property (IP) and antitrust law, the overriding question in the pharmaceutical industry is how to navigate the tradeoff between innovation and access. It is into this debate that William Feldman steps with his important article adapted from recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Dr. Feldman discusses an array of anticompetitive behavior. In this response piece, I focus on “patent thickets” and “product hopping” to emphasize how they often harm consumers without any innovation justification and how they can be addressed.