Marketing Essentials

Chapter 5: The Free Enterprise System

Case Study Online Action

Medical Patents
There is much controversy surrounding the idea of medical patents - that is, the notion that a company can own a discovery or a product that has life-saving abilities.

One line of reasoning states that when companies can patent medicines, those medicines will then have their pricing set according to the market - which means they will be too expensive for some of the people who need them. The counterargument to this states that if you do not make it financially worthwhile for companies to develop new drugs and treatments, then no one will do so.

Activity
What is your opinion about this? Should businesses be allowed to hold patents on potentially life-saving technologies and medicines? Write a five-paragraph persuasive essay on the topic.