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The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

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Re: The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

#71

Post by danielweber »

maxerickson wrote: post #41
richthegeek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without (ab)using patents, DMCA, etc to prevent 3rd-party products their business model would not be sustainable. If your business cannot survive without a government-granted monopoly, it's not a free market.

Sure, it's not a free market. What does that have to do with what I said? My claim is that reasonable printers that are free of bullshit exist for most purposes (prior to Epson switching to reservoir printers, the home color printer market was pretty thin) and yet companies that do use bullshit tactics continue to exist. So the printers exist (patents have not particularly held them back) and for some reason enough p…

The strategy people should be following is to buy the printer based on the cost of consumables. It's what I do. But most people do the strategy of

1. find the model where the company subsidizes the printer to sell the ink

2. Then try to work around the lockouts the company has on the ink market.

Both sides are trying to screw each other over. I see no reason to care. If the people trying to use third-party ink really succeed, all that will happen is that the market strategy will disappear, and so the third-party ink market will vanish. (I really wonder how you run a business where if you really win you go out of business. You need to hope the other side keeps on fighting just enough that you can attract all the people who enjoy fighting over pennies.)

Re: The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

#72

Post by zebrafish »

lkrubner wrote: post #58
zebrafish wrote: post #17

Without the guarantee of a patented marked up drug, would drug companies waste the same amount of money that they currently do on R&D? I'm of the opinion that we would see a major slow down in drug innovation without patents. R&D is very wasteful and expensive. Patents prevent competition for a short period of time to help the business recoup losses from failed experiments and to deliver profits which serve as an inc…

> R&D is very wasteful and expensive. Therefore the government should pay for all of it. In the USA, since 1970, funding for science has declined. If we could merely get funding back to the trend line of 1930 to 1970, then the government would certainly be able to cover this kind of research. More so, it is completely incoherent for anyone to argue "We should leave this to the private sector because the private secto…

I'm definitely not in favor of granting more than a temporary monopoly to recoup losses and provide profit incentives.

I just don't believe that the government should be in the business of drug research. If they fund all of it, they get to decide which drugs will be researched. Let's assume that these decisions are somehow shielded from the influence of politicians. What becomes your KPI for what to research?

Profit? - we already have a system set up for that. Number of lives saved? - How do you balance quality of life improvements against mortality?

Re: The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

#73

Post by ufo »

lkrubner wrote: post #58
zebrafish wrote: post #17

Without the guarantee of a patented marked up drug, would drug companies waste the same amount of money that they currently do on R&D? I'm of the opinion that we would see a major slow down in drug innovation without patents. R&D is very wasteful and expensive. Patents prevent competition for a short period of time to help the business recoup losses from failed experiments and to deliver profits which serve as an inc…

> R&D is very wasteful and expensive. Therefore the government should pay for all of it. In the USA, since 1970, funding for science has declined. If we could merely get funding back to the trend line of 1930 to 1970, then the government would certainly be able to cover this kind of research. More so, it is completely incoherent for anyone to argue "We should leave this to the private sector because the private secto…

And government grants already contribute for a lot of the R&D spending on drug research.

Re: The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

#74

Post by danielweber »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #46
zebrafish wrote: post #17

Without the guarantee of a patented marked up drug, would drug companies waste the same amount of money that they currently do on R&D? I'm of the opinion that we would see a major slow down in drug innovation without patents. R&D is very wasteful and expensive. Patents prevent competition for a short period of time to help the business recoup losses from failed experiments and to deliver profits which serve as an inc…

We just need shorter patents. For example drug companies spend far more on marketing than they do on R&D and a substantial amount of the research that generates new drugs comes from government funded research (>50%). Also, it's been demonstrated that taxpayer funded research drives private R&D up. So if I was dictator, I'd make it illegal to advertise drugs on tv/radio/web, double the current government budget for dr…

> We just need shorter patents.

This is nuts. By the time a major drug is ready for market, out of a 20 year patent there are usually only 5 years left. How much shorter do you think it should be? When they are operating under that kind of deadline, they don't have time for word-of-mouth marketing.

For software, sure, I'm really willing to hear arguments that 20 years is too long. But drug patents lifetimes are already very small. If something is too expensive, wait a few years.

Re: The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

#75

Post by danielweber »

zebrafish wrote: post #55
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just need shorter patents. For example drug companies spend far more on marketing than they do on R&D and a substantial amount of the research that generates new drugs comes from government funded research (>50%). Also, it's been demonstrated that taxpayer funded research drives private R&D up. So if I was dictator, I'd make it illegal to advertise drugs on tv/radio/web, double the current government budget for dr…

I'm a proponent of these ideas. Patent duration as a function of private capital spent? It would have to be immune to "profit-shifting" but maybe that could be a good alternative.

You are getting close to advocating for "cost plus" which sounds really good to outsiders who are concerned about "too much profit" but have stunted every industry into which they have been deployed, and end up driving prices as suppliers look for ways to increase how much they spend. (The more they spend, the more profit they can make.) Look at the aerospace industry.

Re: The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

#76

Post by joshuaheard »

danielweber wrote: post #67
Someone1234 wrote: post #43

I don't think patents are inherently evil; and I also believe that "obvious" patents will get less common with time (relatively speaking we're still in the early days of patent law for many areas). That being said, I think the big issue we're seeing these days is that some patent categories simply last too long. Technology moves a mile a minute, a patent system with a duration of 20 years is absurd, something that wa…

When I was at a start-up and had someone literally rip-off our product (including typos), we would have really liked some faster protection than the patent, which took around 2 years to issue. As a business matter, we would have happily accepted a shorter lifespan in return for a quicker decision.

You say typos so I assume you are referring to software, which has an automatic copyright on creation, and can be enforced much easier and faster than a patent.

Re: The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

#77

Post by danielweber »

joshuaheard wrote: post #76
danielweber wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was at a start-up and had someone literally rip-off our product (including typos), we would have really liked some faster protection than the patent, which took around 2 years to issue. As a business matter, we would have happily accepted a shorter lifespan in return for a quicker decision.

You say typos so I assume you are referring to software, which has an automatic copyright on creation, and can be enforced much easier and faster than a patent.

There were multiple paths we pursued in consultation with our lawyers. If you want me to take your advice over Fish & Richardson, okay.

Re: The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

#78

Post by namlem »

zebrafish wrote: post #17

Without the guarantee of a patented marked up drug, would drug companies waste the same amount of money that they currently do on R&D? I'm of the opinion that we would see a major slow down in drug innovation without patents. R&D is very wasteful and expensive. Patents prevent competition for a short period of time to help the business recoup losses from failed experiments and to deliver profits which serve as an inc…

Drugs are the only industry where this really matters. The government can just offer research subsidies to make up for the reduced patent protections, and everyone would still be better off. It's silly to keep our broken patent system just for the pharmaceutical industry.

Re: The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

#79

Post by vivekd »

maxerickson wrote: post #41
richthegeek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without (ab)using patents, DMCA, etc to prevent 3rd-party products their business model would not be sustainable. If your business cannot survive without a government-granted monopoly, it's not a free market.

Sure, it's not a free market. What does that have to do with what I said? My claim is that reasonable printers that are free of bullshit exist for most purposes (prior to Epson switching to reservoir printers, the home color printer market was pretty thin) and yet companies that do use bullshit tactics continue to exist. So the printers exist (patents have not particularly held them back) and for some reason enough p…

The problem is lack of knowledge, the average customer, including me when I bought my current crappy printer, doesn't have enough knowledge to know that certain printers eat ink. In fact, printer companies that use these sales tactics are relying on lack of customer knowledge. So it's not really reasonable to say that people are ingoring good companies and going to ones that use abusive tactics, its' more that people just don't know.

I get that the customer has some responsibilities, but it doesn't make sense to say that the customer has to exhaustively reserach the ethics of every single company they buy something from. That would make buying a full time job considering our complex modern economy where customers regularly interact with many many companies and buy many many things

Re: The US Supreme Court is hearing a case about patent law’s “exhaustion doctrine”

#80

Post by vivekd »

danielweber wrote: post #71
maxerickson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's not a free market. What does that have to do with what I said? My claim is that reasonable printers that are free of bullshit exist for most purposes (prior to Epson switching to reservoir printers, the home color printer market was pretty thin) and yet companies that do use bullshit tactics continue to exist. So the printers exist (patents have not particularly held them back) and for some reason enough p…

The strategy people should be following is to buy the printer based on the cost of consumables. It's what I do. But most people do the strategy of 1. find the model where the company subsidizes the printer to sell the ink 2. Then try to work around the lockouts the company has on the ink market. Both sides are trying to screw each other over. I see no reason to care. If the people trying to use third-party ink really…

You are assuming that the average customer knows that the company is subsidizing the printer to sell the ink. . . I don't think that is true. I think the average person sees a great deal on a printer and is genuinely surprised when they find it drinks ink like it's Octoberfest.
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