Medical Patents Must Die • Hacker News Board

Re: Medical Patents Must Die

#21

Post by vladd » Sat, Dec 10, 2011, 10:26 PM UTC

zeeed wrote: post #14

vladd wrote: post #5

The patent system reminds me of an airplane going down, but whenever I read statements like "Medical Patents Must Die" I remember that nobody has a solution to make it fly again. The captain might be wrong, but the first officer doesn't know how to fix it (which is a fundamental step of communicating concerns inside the cockpit - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management#Commun... ). We don't know eno…

As much as I understand your argumentation from your first post, the author has a point. Whatever reasons about money, investment or other perfectly valid reason you bring up while advocating medical patents: No one on earth should be KEPT FROM SAVING SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE. That always trumps any endeavor to make a company or ultimately a single person richer.

>> No one on earth should be KEPT FROM SAVING SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE. That always trumps any endeavor to make a company or ultimately a single person richer.

It's not about richness, it's about resource allocation. What you're describing is idealistic but not at all applicable in real life.

There are always situations and treatments that might prolong a person's life with X% for Y USD. What if X=0.01%, Y=500'000 USD (i.e. some highly advanced chemo sessions), and the person is 100 years old? What if you could fund with the same 500'000 USD a study that has a 10% probability to improve the cure rate of the treatment by 10%? You need to establish some boundaries and to allocate the resources according to those thresholds; leaving aside the emotionality of those decisions, at the end of the day the society needs to decide how it splits 1 billion in building new bridges, doing medical research or applying existing solutions to marginal patients. It doesn't matter if the government or the free market makes those decisions, but saying "no one" is unrealistic.

Re: Medical Patents Must Die

#22

Post by Pwnguinz » Sat, Dec 10, 2011, 10:35 PM UTC

vladd wrote: post #10

hendzen wrote: post #6

Just to be clear, I think software and business model patents are ridiculous, but I think the hate the patent system gets on HN is not very constructive. Obviously it was put in place to solve some problems, but ended up causing/exacerbating other problems. My question is this, what is the better way of encouraging innovation and protecting the rights of inventors? I am not defending the current system here, I am jus…

The main issue seems to be the inability of the patent office to realize what's trivial and what's not when reviewing a patent. It fails to do that because it's actually not a trivial thing to do at all when you're not familiar with the field: it is very difficult for a non-IT professional to take a look at Kruskal's pseudocode ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal%27s_algorithm#Descripti... ) and to state if it sol…

I think that's an approach that--on the outset--anyone can agree with. But the problem is that any decent professional of a field capable of doing that are also not the ones willing to sit in the patent office merely reviewing applications.

It's the same principle as PG mentioned in his essay that first rate technical people do not hire themselves out to do due diligence work for VC's, and as a result the "experts" VC's do send over are generally a joke. What's to prevent the same from happening in the patent review office?

Re: Medical Patents Must Die

#23

Post by vladd » Sat, Dec 10, 2011, 10:43 PM UTC

Pwnguinz wrote: post #22

vladd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue seems to be the inability of the patent office to realize what's trivial and what's not when reviewing a patent. It fails to do that because it's actually not a trivial thing to do at all when you're not familiar with the field: it is very difficult for a non-IT professional to take a look at Kruskal's pseudocode ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal%27s_algorithm#Descripti... ) and to state if it sol…

I think that's an approach that--on the outset--anyone can agree with. But the problem is that any decent professional of a field capable of doing that are also not the ones willing to sit in the patent office merely reviewing applications. It's the same principle as PG mentioned in his essay that first rate technical people do not hire themselves out to do due diligence work for VC's, and as a result the "experts" V…

You could pay them at their true value; high-end 6 figures would compensate the dulness and they would work for a healthy cause - the patent office could rise the patent review fees to cover up the costs, which would also have the benefit of eliminating the trivial patent applications that can't pull the weight of the review fees.

I doubt this will raise final consumer prices since for new inventions the price is more often than not what the market tolerates - I think companies will be forced to drop trivial applications as a response to the fee increase.

The other change I would make would be to limit the patent validity to 10 - 15 years max, so after the rich people pay for the research, the invention becomes available to the masses close to the actual production cost.

Re: Medical Patents Must Die

#24

Post by nona » Sat, Dec 10, 2011, 10:58 PM UTC

joeblue wrote: post #13

This specific example definitely feels like an abuse of the patent system. However, the rest of this article relies on weak connections and examples from other industries to argue that medical patents must die. If medical patents die, medical innovation dies. For a moment, let's apply the realities of "medical innovation" (researchers across private and public fields) to internet innovation. Imagine that every app yo…

While I think you probably have a point that drug trials costs are difficult to recoup without patents, I also have the impression pharma patents introduce a whole bunch of other distortions - to the point that patents in that field probably do more harm than good.

I'm sure w can find a better way to handle the cost and risks of trials.

As an aside: it seems history seems to agree that having no patent protection seems to work better for the pharmaceutical industry, see for instance, here:

http://righttocreate.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-drug-companies...

Re: Medical Patents Must Die

#25

Post by rplnt » Sat, Dec 10, 2011, 11:17 PM UTC

All patents must die. After some time. Creators and investors are entitled to their money, their inventions must be protected somehow. That's all right. But not forever for god's sakes. Let's make it 5-15 years depending on the industry or something else. So much it's enough time to make fortune. But not so much that you can troll with that patent after half of the century. Even though the investors are paid and inventor is dead.

Re: Medical Patents Must Die

#26

Post by hendzen » Sat, Dec 10, 2011, 11:37 PM UTC

vladd wrote: post #23

Pwnguinz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's an approach that--on the outset--anyone can agree with. But the problem is that any decent professional of a field capable of doing that are also not the ones willing to sit in the patent office merely reviewing applications. It's the same principle as PG mentioned in his essay that first rate technical people do not hire themselves out to do due diligence work for VC's, and as a result the "experts" V…

You could pay them at their true value; high-end 6 figures would compensate the dulness and they would work for a healthy cause - the patent office could rise the patent review fees to cover up the costs, which would also have the benefit of eliminating the trivial patent applications that can't pull the weight of the review fees. I doubt this will raise final consumer prices since for new inventions the price is mor…

This would also hamper the original purpose of patents - to protect small time inventors from large companies duplicating their inventions. Sure, maybe Apple could afford greatly increased patent fees, but if you raised them enough to pay for six-figure salaries of patent examiners, it would be prohibitively expensive for ordinary people to use the system.

Re: Medical Patents Must Die

#27

Post by loceng » Sat, Dec 10, 2011, 11:40 PM UTC

dfleming wrote: post #2

How on earth is there not prior art (I think that's the term I want) for the functioning of a small part of the human metabolism? It seems to me rather obvious that the researcher, her/his ancestors, friends, you, and me all other humans constitute prior art to that patent. I struggle with similar questions when I see articles on how companies are patenting specific DNA sequences. I guess my problem boils down to thi…

I think the issue is initially when things were being invented there was a general lack of understanding of things. When car manufacturers first discovered how to bind metal to rubber (think tires), they didn't even patent it. There wasn't enough knowledge or skilled people to do the experimentation needed. They didn't want to patent it at that point they would just be teaching competition how to do it and within X number of years lose their advantage, and a minor variation in the process could allow them to compete anyway.

And what is the difference between discovery and invention? Anything science related is discovery.

Worse, money only goes into research that has a high level of profit potential, meaning that only if it can be patented. This structure is very detrimental to all societies.

Who knows how many times things that could be very beneficial to society never see the light of day. And if there is something so beneficial to society that is discovered then the cost skyrockets giving companies huge profits. Even worse, what if something is found to totally eliminate a disease but isn't patentable? The company surely isn't going to release that information if it's in an area they're trying to generate profits. On top of that the low-profit-margin solution will have to fight the big-profit companies marketing campaigns directly or indirectly against them. That is totally the opposite behaviour behind the point of innovation and capitalism.

The purpose of capitalism is to drive innovation, and the point of innovation is to reduce costs to zero, so then those savings can be past onto increasing innovation in other needed areas; Currently those profits are used to further research of other profit-potential patentable drugs. Thankfully we have universities but even those people resources and their efforts are driven much of the time by big companies looking for profitable options.

Discovery and innovation should be rewarded by society, however preventing others from easily furthering an innovation or using it in further inventions causes a huge delay (and potentially even permanently) to

People fear monger and say innovation won't happen if you can't have patents, which I don't believe to be true. One of the main keys is you need education systems in place, and we have those.

Re: Medical Patents Must Die

#28

Post by joeblue » Sat, Dec 10, 2011, 11:49 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #19

joeblue wrote: post #13

This specific example definitely feels like an abuse of the patent system. However, the rest of this article relies on weak connections and examples from other industries to argue that medical patents must die. If medical patents die, medical innovation dies. For a moment, let's apply the realities of "medical innovation" (researchers across private and public fields) to internet innovation. Imagine that every app yo…

Well, the issue is simply that testing (to FDA standards) is expensive. You could either have the FDA fund all testing, or just allow patents on well tested products. You could even allow retrospective patents on some orphan drugs, if a company is willing to invest in testing it. Most people think it's fine to patent stuff to cover the costs of bringing a new drug to the market.

Letting the FDA fund clinical trials could create conflicts of interest. I think it would be more beneficial if the FDA started conducting long term efficacy studies to determine if newer treatments outperform older, lower cost options.

Re: Medical Patents Must Die

#29

Post by moldbug » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 12:14 AM UTC

joeblue wrote: post #13

This specific example definitely feels like an abuse of the patent system. However, the rest of this article relies on weak connections and examples from other industries to argue that medical patents must die. If medical patents die, medical innovation dies. For a moment, let's apply the realities of "medical innovation" (researchers across private and public fields) to internet innovation. Imagine that every app yo…

Believe it or not, new surgical procedures are neither patentable nor approved by any Federal regulator. Typically I think there's an IRB and you ought to have hacked around with some pigs or something. Other than that - take a knife, start cutting. At least that's my understanding.

Has this regime resulted in (a) an absence of innovation, (b) an epidemic of horrific quack surgery disasters, (c) both? I'd love to hear someone argue for applying the drug/device regulation regime to surgical procedures. The argument for the converse sure seems pretty obvious.

Clearly, you can't have the FDA process without patent monopoly protection. If you kill one, you need to kill both. Bearing in mind, of course, that Washington being Washington, nothing short of a revolution can kill either...

Re: Medical Patents Must Die

#30

Post by Pwnguinz » Sun, Dec 11, 2011, 12:37 AM UTC

vladd wrote: post #23

Pwnguinz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's an approach that--on the outset--anyone can agree with. But the problem is that any decent professional of a field capable of doing that are also not the ones willing to sit in the patent office merely reviewing applications. It's the same principle as PG mentioned in his essay that first rate technical people do not hire themselves out to do due diligence work for VC's, and as a result the "experts" V…

You could pay them at their true value; high-end 6 figures would compensate the dulness and they would work for a healthy cause - the patent office could rise the patent review fees to cover up the costs, which would also have the benefit of eliminating the trivial patent applications that can't pull the weight of the review fees. I doubt this will raise final consumer prices since for new inventions the price is mor…

Just to add on to what hendzen said, they are already rather expensive as it is: $15,000 for 20 years (in Canada, where I'm from). Hardly affordable for the average small-time inventor. A friend of mine whom just patented a method of preventing over-the-shoulder spying for PIN input devices and could only afford to buy patent protection for 1 year (and for some odd reason, it cannot be increased with future payments--so whatever you commit to buying in the outset is how much protection you'll receive, period.) Increasing it further would simply make the price far too prohibitive.

As for limiting the patent validity period, the current 20 years that most nations follow is not all that long depending on the circumstance. A better method (if it's even regulatable) is X years of protection OR until you recoup your original investment + X % of return (whichever occurs first). The problem is to then police the claims of cost to invent the patent, which is a whole can of worms on its own.