Patents relating to medicine or medical treatments often don't come without controversy Should we allow the patenting of essential medicines or treatments  which if provided cheap enough could save countless lives  or ease the suffering of many? What about the monetary interests of parties who've sunk millions into research and development  should we prevent them from recouping that investment? One of the more interesting  and possibly more important decisions in patents was put forth to the US Supreme Court on the 15th of April  when oral arguments for the case were heard