I think it's more reasonable that doctors or health care providers or health insurance companies will be the ones that actually have to license any patents because that's where the money is. It's not like consumers need to keep a bracelet or file of all the patents they've licensed so they know which software and hardware they can buy.
Can you imagine not being able to get a cast because your hmo didn't license the patent for "applying gauze soaked in plaster to a broken or fractured limb to prevent the bone from moving while it heals"? crap.
Here's a good example though. Serafem is basically prosac, but it's approved for treating severe PMS basically. They license the patent for that correlation from MIT.
A doctor prescribing generic prosac instead would then be violating MIT's patent.
Unfortunately here medical patents are already here. I don't think the Supreme Court is going to switch course either. What we really need is for Congress to act and impose compulsatory licensing on all patents if the end technology is a medical one. This is also what is needed to bring medical costs down in this country. Unfortunately Congress is in the hands of big business so they will probably run the other direction....
Can you imagine not being able to get a cast because your hmo didn't license the patent for "applying gauze soaked in plaster to a broken or fractured limb to prevent the bone from moving while it heals"? crap.