Pharmaceutical companies protect new drugs via patents to recoup years of investment and fund future projects. Patents provide exclusive rights to the drug companies to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States” for a limited time. However, every patent has an expiration date after which competitors that make generic forms of the product can enter the market, resulting in a loss of market exclusivity for the drug. Once a drug loses its exclusivity, it is known as an “Established Brand” or a “Legacy Brand.”
