This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, I spoke again with Fran Cruz, Senior Vice President of IP Solutions for Juristat. Our conversation was about a topic that should be top of mind for every patent prosecution firm, every in-house IP department, and every legal operations professional trying to make sense of the current market for patent related legal work. Where is patent prosecution work going, when does work move from firm to firm, when it does move, where is it moving, and what will firms have to do to win—or keep—the patent preparation and prosecution work?

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, my conversation with patent broker Louis Carbonneau centers on a fundamental breakdown in the economic engine that has historically driven innovation. While innovation itself has not disappeared, the incentive structure that once enabled a repeatable cycle—innovate, patent, monetize, reinvest—has eroded. Large market participants increasingly operate under a “use now, pay later (if ever)” model, which disproportionately disadvantages individual inventors and smaller entities. As a result, many innovators are unable to sustain continued development beyond an initial breakthrough, leading to a systemic drag on long-term innovation output. This shift is reinforced by a broader cultural normalization of “free” access to intellectual property, which has migrated from the copyright into the patent and innovation industry.

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, I spoke with Brent Bellows, a partner with Knowles Intellectual Property Strategies (KIPS). We discussed a variety of issues including Hatch-Waxman, Orange Book listings, paragraph IV certifications, skinny labels, generic entry, clinical trial costs, regulatory exclusivity, and the enormous financial risk associated with bringing new drugs to market. Gene and Brent explore the tension between public demand for lower drug prices and the need for durable incentives that make high-risk drug development economically viable, particularly for oncology, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and other difficult-to-treat conditions. The episode closes with a broader innovation-policy message: patents are not a peripheral feature of drug development—they are a core operating asset that enables private-sector investment, supports breakthrough therapies, and ultimately drives the availability of future generic medicines.