Reply #7: Drug companies do this all the time. [View All]

[SnowGoose]

It's detestable, but let me ask you a question.

How would you argue against the patent-holder claim "We're still testing the safety (efficiency, durability, whatever) - we're not ready to bring it to market." Any product could be delayed forever, while officially "in development."

You wouldn't want to set arbitrary time limit, because some things really ought to be studied for a good long time before they're released into the environment. The famous compound DES, for example, didn't to anything to the women who took it, but gave cervical cancer to their daughters twenty years later.