Adequately funding the nation's patent system is the most important reform that could be enacted right now. Unfortunately, the legislation making its way through Congress may not do very much to help the situation.

Indian bureaucrats and politicians must overcome short-term thinking and improve India's IP systems by ensuring that deserving products receive patents and making sure trademarks are enforced. Only then will India develop a true innovation economy.

India is on the brink of finalizing a free trade agreement with the European Union. Yet even as the deal gets close, one area remains hotly contested: protection for intellectual property (IP). Controversy mounts over "data exclusivity" for pharmaceuticals.

The current fiscal crisis facing state and federal budgets is the largest in recent history. Continued wasteful spending in the Medicaid drug program is a problem requiring policymakers' prompt attention.

Successfully translating scientific discoveries requires a sense of urgency, which some disease foundations seem to have, and many big pharmas appear to need. Patients waiting expectantly for medical research to produce important new cures are finding bad news almost everywhere they turn.

Lawmakers need to take a closer look at how to treat fraud at the Patent and Trademark Office.

Medicaid programs engage in a large amount of unnecessary and wasteful drug spending by reimbursing pharmacies for relatively costly brand products when identical generic products are available.

In patent politics there is more at stake than money.