People with HIV and AIDS are living for a much longer time and with a better quality of life now thanks to improved pharmaceuticals. With these higher-quality drugs, however, comes a high price tag that makes the drugs unavailable to a large portion of people who need them. By pooling medical patents together, the drug companies and other patent holders can still earn money, so what is the holdup? Ellen 'tHoen discusses this issue with some though-provoking comparisons between the airplane patent pool and the medical patent pool.