Term of the Day: Patent Cliff

TERM OF THE DAY - OCTOBER 4, 2011 Add Investopedia to Safe Sender List Find Investopedia on Patent Cliff What Does it Mean? A colloquialism to denote the potential sharp decline in revenues upon patent expiry of one or more leading products of a firm. A patent cliff is when a firm's revenues could "fall off a cliff" when one or more established products go off-patent, since these products can be replicated and sold at much cheaper prices by competitors. While it is applicable to any industry, in recent years the term "patent cliff" has come to be associated almost exclusively with the pharmaceutical industry. Investopedia Says... The world's biggest pharmaceutical firms such as Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline stand to lose billions of dollars in revenues from the patent expiration on such blockbuster... Read more » TODAY'S NEWSLETTER IS SPONSORED BY: Slideshow - 6 Generic Products That Are Just As Good Sometimes, it's worth it to stick to brand name, but going generic on certain products can save you tons.  View the Slideshow » Special Feature - Technical Analysis Do you prefer analyzing charts rather than financial statements? Technical analysis does just that. Click here for more. Related Terms Generic Brand Intellectual Property Non-Disclosure Agreement - NDA Patent Pharmaceutical Industry ETF See More » Related Links Patents Are Assets, So Learn How To Value Them Pharma Patent Trolls: Cheap Drugs At A Steep Price Buying Into Corporate Research & Development (R&D) See More » Find Term Of The day Useful? Check out our other FREE newsletters! Stock Watch Weekly Forex Weekly News To Use Warren Buffett Watch Investing Basics The Chart Advisor Report Professionals in the Money You are currently subscribed to term-of-the-day as: newsforward@autoforextradingpro.com To unsubscribe or change your email settings, please click here. Copyright © 2011 - All rights reserved. Investopedia ULC.