The case is about evergreening and in a way, about proving that an innovation is useful enough for patent protection or extension. This I think is fair and Novartis got what they deserved. Their posturing is pointless, because India also does compulsory licensing, meaning if Novartis says we won't bring a drug to India, the Indian govt can simply say screw you, we're going to make it anyway. India did it to Bayer last year, and started it on two more cancer drugs by Roche and BMY a couple months back. This is not sustainable if adopted by all countries, but if it is, even then Novartis will have to play ball. The game might escalate to countries threatening each other and I'd like to see that play out.
I also think the patent system is horribly broken. From drug patents which are ludicrously complex, to patents such as apple's slide to unlock (which I believe shouldn't have been granted at all, not only because it's obvious, but because it existed in touch products earlier). The problem is that patents have become a way to keep innovators out rather than foster new innovation - so if you do something earthshattering today you have to check thousands and thousands of patents to be sure you haven't infringed on anything, since it'll cost you a huge amount if you did, even inadvertently. The last point is that many of these drugs are tested through publicly funded trials or use publicly funded research. Tough to defend the capitalism vigorously there.
