How long until a drug goes generic?

Informative readers have pointed out various websites that give clues about when currently high-priced on-patent drugs might be available as generics. For example, here's an FDA site. 

But it's not exactly user friendly, especially when you consider that a huge fraction of patients are not quite as sharp as they used to be. For example, here's what I get for Lipitor, the biggest revenue drug in the history of pharmaceuticals, which I've been getting generically for around a year:

Patent and Exclusivity Search Results from query on Appl No 020702 Product 001 in the OB_Rx list. 

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Patent Data

Appl No	Prod No	Patent No	Patent Expiration	Drug Substance Claim	Drug Product Claim	Patent Use Code	Delist Requested
N020702	001	5686104	Nov 11, 2014		Y	U - 213
N020702	001	5686104*PED	May 11, 2015			U - 213
N020702	001	5969156	Jul 8, 2016	Y
N020702	001	5969156*PED	Jan 8, 2017
N020702	001	6126971	Jan 19, 2013		Y
N020702	001	6126971*PED	Jul 19, 2013

Exclusivity Data

There is no unexpired exclusivity for this product. 

I'm pretty baffled by the rows of information, but it looks like the sentence at the end is pretty clear: "There is no unexpired exclusivity for this product."

But for products that are still on patent, it's not at all clear what's going on:

Patent Data

Appl No	Prod No	Patent No	Patent Expiration	Drug Substance Claim	Drug Product Claim	Patent Use Code	Delist Requested
x	003	z*PED	Jul 16, 2012
x	003	q	Feb 14, 2014	Y	Y
x	003	e*PED	Aug 14, 2014
x	003	r	Aug 30, 2012			U - 629
x	003	y*PED	Mar 2, 2013
x	003	p*PED	Jul 16, 2012

Exclusivity Data

Appl No	Prod No	Exclusivity Code	Exclusivity Expiration
x	003	M - 61	Oct 10, 2015
x	003	PED	Apr 10, 2016

So , how much longer until a patient can get it generically?

This would seem like the kind of thing that Cass Sunnstein, the Obama Administration's Nudgeocrat, could more profitably devote his time to doing than to his previous bright ideas like having the government battle on-line conspiracy theorizing by organizing a conspiracy to infiltrate conspiracy theorizers and plant more pro-government views. (The history of agent provocateurs raises severe questions about this approach.)

Cass, why don't you use your big brain to make it easy for an 80-year-old to figure out how long until his brand name medicine goes generic?

The other issues is that there is a lot of leeway in when things go generic because of anti-competition conspiracies between patent-holders and generic manufacturers. I'd like to see a scorecard where that gets spelled out in comprehensible detail. Make it easy to tote up just how much healthcare spending is boosted annually by anti-competitive agreements between patent holders and generic manufacturers. I wouldn't be surprised if the number is something like $100 billion annually. And yet, you almost never hear of it outside of investors' discussion groups.