In limiting the patent term to twenty years, Congress sought to use competition to make patented products available to the public at low prices once inventors have reaped the fruits of the exclusivity provided by the patent grant. But competition has in practice proven an unreliable method of...

A generic drug maker that has been sued for infringing a patent on a branded drug will sometimes promise, as part of an agreement settling the litigation, to delay selling its drug until as late as the expiration of the patent term. I adapt the standard optimal patent term model to determine...