Eminent domain's slippery slope

Tech Central Station's Pejman Yousefzadeh has an essay on the New London case that for the most part reiterates what many others (for example, here!) have been saying about the monster that eminent domain has become. Yousefzadeh, however, brings up a point that I had not considered. Once municipal governments are comfortable with the idea of seizing private property for the "public good", the potential for eminent domain mischief is limited only by the imaginations of government officials and their advisers (emphasis added):

While the public seizure of private real property is scary enough, the power of eminent domain can be abused still further. This article calls for the exercise of eminent domain by local governments to take away the patents drug companies own on their products and give those patents to companies that will agree to sell pharmaceutical products at lower prices. Never mind the already heavy financial burden on pharmaceutical companies to perform the necessary research and development on their products. And never mind that drug companies will be less inclined to engage in research, justly worried that their inventions could be appropriated under this newfangled vision of eminent domain abuse. After all, what incentive is there for drug companies to come out with new products and engage in costly and time-consuming research if their property rights are not respected? Millions of Americans will have their lives negatively impacted by additional barriers against pharmaceutical research, development and distribution.