In practice it's often longer. Drug companies queue up minor tweaks to their formulas and can threaten to sue anyone even close to the new way, even carbon copies of the now expired patent. Few can afford to win a lawsuit.

We need more courts and judges to speed the process, to make justice more accessible, and universal SLAPP protections to weed out frivolous abuse.

True, though at least with drugs if there's a shortage compounding pharmacies are given broad freedom outside the patent holder's control. See semaglutide.

Sad that we rely on the scraps these captured regulators let fall through the cracks. At least until their patrons awake and close those loopholes.