The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

#101

Post by cwp » Sun, Sep 30, 2012, 6:05 PM UTC

PatentTroll wrote: post #84

roryokane wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property , types of intellectual property other than patents include copyright, trademarks, industrial design rights, and trade secrets. You could get rid of patents while keeping those other types of intellectual property.

And what's the efficacy of copyright, trademark, design rights, and trade secrets in protecting a new process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter? The first three are not applicable, and the fourth may protect innovation but comes at the expense of no public disclosure.

None. And that's the point. The idea here is to stop granting monopoly on on these areas.

But that won't affect, for example, authors, musicians or marketers. It won't allow anyone to start screening movies without paying royalties, or a new social network called "Facefolio" or proprietary products based on GPL'd code.

Re: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

#102

Post by luriel » Sun, Sep 30, 2012, 6:25 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #93

refurb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that raises a few questions. 1) How do they keep them high? They are buying these services from a third-party. 2) These cost of clinical trials is increasing because FDA evidence requirements are getting stricter and stricter. Back in the 1950s, you could get a drug approved in under 2 years. Now? It's more like 5-8 years. Of course, you end up with much safer drugs this way.

I think #2 answers #1. AKA, they have pushed legislation to increase FDA requirements.

Actually this a well known process known as regulatory capture.

Where the regulated industry ends up in some kind of symbiosis with its regulator, encouraging it to both grow and to keep competition at bay.

The conflict between the regulators and the regulated industry is largely a farce as they know they need each other.

Re: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

#103

Post by cwp » Sun, Sep 30, 2012, 6:26 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #79

nnnnnnnn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funding the expensive regulatory process (which includes clinical trials and all the rest) is very easy to legislate. For example, grant a company some limited exclusive rights for commerce/sale of a drug they have funded through clinical trials. A commercial restriction on the sale of a drug would be far less onerous and legally problematic than the current patent system.

>For example, grant a company some limited exclusive rights for commerce/sale of a drug they have funded through clinical trials. Eh, isn't that the textbook definition of a patent?

Not quite.

A patent is granted for the invention of a drug, not the testing. If the monopoly were tied to the approval process, it would be limited to the country where the approval was granted. So shepherding a drug through the FDA approval process would get you a monopoly in the US, but not other countries.

Also, you can patent drugs that haven't been approved, which makes it basically impossible for anyone else to do the clinical trials. Breaking the link between the research and the approval process would make it easier for effective drugs to get tested and approved.

Finally, sure, that scheme would be a lot like patents. But at the very least it would be specific to the drug industry, where they are (maybe) useful, and wouldn't distort other industries where patents are actively harmful.

Re: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

#104

Post by luriel » Sun, Sep 30, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

cturner wrote: post #73

rauljara wrote: post #4

> The poster child for strong patent protection is usually the pharmaceutical industry, as drugs are easily copied and can cost upwards of a billion dollars to develop. Here, Boldrin and Levine admit that the government would likely need to step in. But rather than giving companies a legal monopoly over their formulas, the authors suggest we should modify the drug approval process to let makers start recouping their…

I'm a big fan of Boldrin/Levine but suspect they're wrong about this. The reason medical investigation is so expensive is because there's so much red tape around it in the form of approvals, and the convoluted systems health coverage in the developed world. It's a classic insiders' club. People got institutionalised into the culture, and then can swap between government and industry. There's no strong incentive for a…

It is a textbook case of regulatory capture.

Still, abolishing patents would go a long way to allowing real competition and progress in healthcare.

Re: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

#105

Post by luriel » Sun, Sep 30, 2012, 6:32 PM UTC

olliesaunders wrote: post #22

The pharmaceuticals industry could never have grown so big without patents. That kind of drug research would have had to been done by publicly-funded bodies, such as universities. I kind of feel like this is an argument in favor of this article. It also explains why it will never happen. Now that we have big-pharma how are we doing to disassemble the thing that keeps it alive?

Most medical research already happens in publicly-funded bodies, bit it is then spun-off and captured by big pharma.

Not to mention that as many have pointed out over and over again, the main expenses of drug companies are not research, but drug approval bureaucracy and marketing.

Re: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

#106

Post by columbo » Sun, Sep 30, 2012, 7:15 PM UTC

Suncho wrote: post #75

shadowmint wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember theres a difference between getting rid of patents and getting rid of intellectual property. I don't think anyone is serious about suggesting we get rid of intellectual property; if you're create something, there should be protections to stop people ripping off your stuff and selling it without paying you for it. It's patents that are the problem. Patents let you capture an idea and prevent people from creat…

I disagree that there should be protections to stop people from "ripping off your stuff" and selling it without paying you for it. Instead, there should be protections to stop people from copying your idea without you getting credit for it. But there don't need to be legal protections. All you need to do is make your idea public to prevent anyone else from claiming they were first. I'm serious about getting rid of al…

I don't understand.

Say I pay a Valve employee a million dollars for the current working source-code of Half-Life 3. I then compile it and release the first couple working levels for $10 a pop... I should easily be able to make 50 million out of that exercise.

What protections would Valve have in your no-copyright, no-ip scenario?

Re: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

#107

Post by rayiner » Sun, Sep 30, 2012, 7:23 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #78

rayiner wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

zm didn't say it was difficult to quantify. He said there was a "decent chance" of being sued. The implication is that he has quantified it and that quantity amounts to a "decent chance."

Oh? Well, if "decent" is a quantity then perhaps you can give us the number he's implying.

"decent chance" implies you have quantified the probability and concluded it is somewhere between unlikely and likely. It needn't be precise, but it implies a quantity. There is a 0.001% chance of my dying in a car accident this year. If someone said "you shouldn't move to the suburbs because there is a decent chance you'll die commuting" you'd probably shrug that off as hyperbole. There is a 1-3% chance of pregnancy each year despite use of birth control. Would you say "there is a decent chance of knocking up your girlfriend even with condom use?" Possibly, but I think most people consider that probability "remote" rather than "decent." There is a 10% chance of being audited as a small business. Is that "decent"? I think most people would say "keep your books carefully, there is a decent chance of yor being audited."

Re: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

#108

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 30, 2012, 7:24 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #78

rayiner wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

zm didn't say it was difficult to quantify. He said there was a "decent chance" of being sued. The implication is that he has quantified it and that quantity amounts to a "decent chance."

Oh? Well, if "decent" is a quantity then perhaps you can give us the number he's implying.

[deleted]

Re: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

#109

Post by tsotha » Sun, Sep 30, 2012, 8:19 PM UTC

cwp wrote: post #103

tsotha wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For example, grant a company some limited exclusive rights for commerce/sale of a drug they have funded through clinical trials. Eh, isn't that the textbook definition of a patent?

Not quite. A patent is granted for the invention of a drug, not the testing. If the monopoly were tied to the approval process, it would be limited to the country where the approval was granted. So shepherding a drug through the FDA approval process would get you a monopoly in the US, but not other countries. Also, you can patent drugs that haven't been approved, which makes it basically impossible for anyone else to…

Ah, I see what you're saying now. That makes quite a bit of sense, especially if it applied only to drugs and medical devices.

Re: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them)

#110

Post by Retric » Sun, Sep 30, 2012, 8:38 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #100

Retric wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to dig a little deeper than that. Of the 252 drugs, how many where minor modifications of existing drugs. And how many where targeted based on government funded research.

Click on the link I provided and read the details. I even quoted the relevant numbers. Of the 252 drugs that were approved, 118 were regarded as "scientifically novel" (not me-too drugs or minor modifications of existing drugs). They also did another cut where they looked at FDA "priority approvals", which basically means the FDA was willing to fast track the approval because the disease the drug was treating had no…

A minor nitpic Drug R&D has a defacto subsidy in the tax code. see: "For purposes of section 38, the research credit determined under this section for the taxable year shall be an amount equal to the sum of" () As well as several other direct and indirect subsidies.