The issue is control without regard for doing the right thing: This is essentially about patents. It's not that patents are bad, but rather that patents can be bad. As you probably already know, patents are a service provided by government to protect an inventor, such that the inventor has an element of control over how their innovation/product gets used. This is generally a good thing, because ultimately it provides order to a process that would get very chaotic very quickly should the patent not exist. However, sometimes the inventor isn't the best person to make decisions about control. Sometimes, the inventor doesn't have the best information to take stock of a situation, or sometimes there might be a moral argument where monetary performance should not take precedent. In other words, sometimes, there are special circumstances where you could say it is reasonable that this control is tweaked.
To illustrate this, here are some hypothetical (and not so hypothetical examples):
1. You are a company that recently received your patent, so that now your drug is being sold for $1500 instead of the previous $10 pricetag.
2. Your country has experienced a series of anthrax scares. The company that holds the patent for the most effective drug against infection from the offending bacterium, sees an opportunity, and decides to jack up the price.
3. Someone has declared war on your country. To defend yourself, you would like to utilize a particular product. Unfortunately, it is under a cost prohibitive patent and therefore out of reach.
4. There is an impending nuclear power plant meltdown, and there is technology that would be incredibly useful to mitigate radiation contamination and poisoning. However, your resources are already stretched because of the utterly horrific effects of a 9.0 Richter Scale earthquake, and this technology is too expensive at the scale that is required in such an emergency.
5. There are markets where your life saving drug is not being sold because no-one can afford them anyway. However, the drug (which could be a matter of life and death for millions) could be made at a cost (i.e. a generic) that makes it accessible in these markets, but if and only if, the patent over them is adjusted.
Here is my point. In all of the above cases, you would like to live in a civil society where the government can step in and forcibly change the patent, because in every case, there is an element of morality involved. And guess what - governments can do this and they do! It's called a "compulsory license," and they exist for this very purpose.
In fact, even the WTO is on board with this idea. They recognize that in some circumstances, such as those pertaining to global health, there needs to be an understanding that using such compulsory licenses is both necessary and an obligation. In fact, if you have a hankering for the legalese that outlines this for patents over essential medicines, you need only look up info on the Doha Declaration.
