In case you missed it - I saw it not in the Albuquerque dailies -
here are the essentials of a story the New York Times ran Jan. 6:
Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, a very profitable painkiller, deliberately misled the US Patent office to protect its drug from generic competition. So ruled a federal district judge in New York.
Purdue told the Patent Office 90 percent of patients got relief by taking very little medicine, from 10 to 40 milligrams.
Ah, but there were no studies backing that claim. Purdue admitted it was Dr. Robert Kaiko's "discovery," made solely in his head, but contended it still was valid.
Internal documents from 1993 revealed Purdue executives believed company's claims "weren't anywhere close" to proof.
The decision will pave the way for Endo Pharmaceuticals to market a generic version.
PS The story notes that the FDA grants five years of exclusivity to any drug it approves and companies generally rely on patents to keep their monopolies after that.