In 2001, a pharmaceutical company filed for a patent extension for its drug Angiomax a day after the deadline. Ever since, it has been lobbying to get Congress to retroactively fix its lawyers’ error. So far the effort has failed–mostly because a few senators have objected to a legislative favor for one company, felt squeamish about voting to keep a drug’s price high for several extra years, or disliked the way the proposal’s sponsors were trying to rush it through. There’s a chance that the Medicines Company fix will be attached to the stimulus bill in the Senate. It seems like a bad precedent to set.