False hope and fictitious patents: evaluating the intellectual property of OxyContin

This article evaluates the opioid epidemic through the lens of intellectual property law, focusing on OxyContin's trajectory from conception to market. Using interdisciplinary analysis and doctrinal legal examination, I theorise that the patent system relies on ‘industrialised hope’ in commodifying scientific outputs for overall societal benefit. OxyContin was one such output, though I contend it offered false hope. I show that OxyContin's key patents were granted based on unproven efficacy claims, while the Food and Drug Administration credulously approved the drug. OxyContin's originator, Purdue Pharma, mobilised patent protection, regulatory approval and trademark-based marketing to create a blockbuster opioid that triggered the crisis. Rather than an aberration, I argue OxyContin exemplifies systemic flaws in the intellectual property system: misaligned incentives, inadequate patent examination and insufficient regulation. When ‘fictitious’ patents are granted, this blurs the boundary between the patent and trademark regimes and undermines the patent system's foundational hope of advancing industrial progress.