The Silencing of Maya

No they're not. You misunderstand; the original patent doesn't expire. It's EXTENDED. The original drug does not go into any public domain to be manufactured or built on by other companies.

Many drug manufacturers make generic drugs, but that number has decreased, which has led to behavior like the larger original drug manufacturers. I won't allege outright collusion, but it's crazy when everyone in an industry starts agreeing at one time that a medicine isn't profitable... Leaving a strong demand and opportunity for any one of them to step in and clean up... And no one does.

And before anyone wants to jump into the cost of research, some pharma businesses like GSK, spend about twice on sales and business costs than they do research[0]. And then there's the amount they DO contribute that gives patenting applicability to mostly public research.

It's quite depressing.

[0]http://www.gsk.com/investors/reps11/GSK-Annual-Report-2011.p...

Around page 136, I think.

Their goal is also to provide this to other families. I don't think you can expect everyone that wants this tool to have apple hardware to compile on as well as a developer account.

That's a lot of hoops to get through when the alternative is as simple as attaching your .apk in an email or posting it online.

This appears to be the crux of it: is the technology that SfY 'copied' actually the direct results of decades of effort, or could it have been created by a few designers and developers looking at the problem of assisting disabled children over a few months?

If the approach that is used is trivial to think of and/or implement, then maybe it's not really "marketing someone else's life's work", but just re-implementing a simple-enough idea. If patents are granted for ideas as simple as that, then clearly patents are broken.

>>> We intend to participate in this space (new consumer technology / tablet apps) but will only do so in a way that supports the best possible language outcomes for those clients with severe communications disorders.

I hope that includes pricing a product well within range of most potential customers, and not at $2,500+ prices.

If the entire approach of an app is easily copied, it hardly has the right to expect to not be copied (except when patent protected). It's funny, we get much more complicated algorithms and systems implemented for free in free/open software, while these families have to pay the economic rent imposed by a patent-holder for a relatively simple design that IMO could be easily re-invented by a few product designers focusing on the problem.

  There is and can be no ethical principle [..]

* Corporations are legal entities that are allowed because they were expected to, and have been shown to, advance our average wellbeing

* Corporations more effectively increase our average wellbeing if they are encouraged to heavily invest in innovation. They receive this encouragement by allowing them temporary monopolies on their inventions, thus enabling them to profit from their investment

* On average, the population profits: they have more free time, more money, a better health and can engage in 'creating and trading' all they want, except for a few specific instances that have been sacrificed in order to enable them to have these resources and this wellbeing in the first place

It's a trade-off our government made for us, in the belief it would be a net benefit. Things seems to have taken a wrong turn somewhere, but the original intent of the patent system was for the public good. That is a valid moral argument. Which doesn't mean you have to agree with it.