India blocks Colgate patents for spices

Imagine all the countless hour of pointless human labor that could be saved if we simply abolished patents. How many man hours has been wasted in these thousands of cases? And for what? How is patenting combination of spices going to increase innovation?

But then again I suppose this "solves" the problem that there's not enough productive work to go around.

In a 100 years perhaps all human endeavor will be about fighting over imaginary monopolies.

Re: India blocks Colgate patents for spices

#6

Post by themgt » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 1:08 PM UTC

"You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? - Medicine." - Tim Minchin

This quote used to really sum up my opinion, but the more time I've spent growing and eating and researching a variety of plants/herbs/spices, it's quite clear that many of them do have quite a lot of beneficial health effects, often unique in being more effective or having less side-effects than western medicine. Plants have chemical-producing machinery that is in many ways far more advanced than what humans have developed.

And many of them have been under-researched, I think both because of 20th century biases and the regulatory/patent environment, so in fact there's quite a gap between what we call medicine and treatments in alternative medicine which could be reasonably considered likely beneficial/effective.

Just as an example, go read the Wikipedia pages and some assorted Googled info on what was listed in the article: nutmeg, ginger, “Bakul” tree, camphor, cinnamon, turmeric, Indian banyan, black pepper, long pepper, Neem and clove.

Re: India blocks Colgate patents for spices

#7

Post by ateevchopra » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 1:09 PM UTC

audunw wrote: post #5

Imagine all the countless hour of pointless human labor that could be saved if we simply abolished patents. How many man hours has been wasted in these thousands of cases? And for what? How is patenting combination of spices going to increase innovation? But then again I suppose this "solves" the problem that there's not enough productive work to go around. In a 100 years perhaps all human endeavor will be about figh…

`How is patenting combination of spices going to increase innovation`

Sometimes its not about innovation. Many companies buy patents and make high priced drugs. These drugs can be made available to the poor for very less price, but patents like these block local makers from doing so.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/all-tha...

Re: India blocks Colgate patents for spices

#8

Post by primroot » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 1:16 PM UTC

audunw wrote: post #5

Imagine all the countless hour of pointless human labor that could be saved if we simply abolished patents. How many man hours has been wasted in these thousands of cases? And for what? How is patenting combination of spices going to increase innovation? But then again I suppose this "solves" the problem that there's not enough productive work to go around. In a 100 years perhaps all human endeavor will be about figh…

"Hitherto [1848] it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. ... Only when, in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight, can the conquests made from the powers of nature by the intellect and energy of scientific discoverers become the common property of the species, and the means of improving and elevating the universal lot." Wrote J.S. Mill. I do not see us getting anywhere near this state of society, certainly not as long we "need" jobs.

Re: India blocks Colgate patents for spices

#9

Post by brobinson » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 1:19 PM UTC

jhdevos wrote: post #4

boot13 wrote: post #3

Javascript required.

In firefox: Preferences -> Advanced -> enable "Warn me when websites try to redirect or reload the page". Other browsers will probably have similar options.

Neat. When was this added?

Re: India blocks Colgate patents for spices

#10

Post by x5n1 » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 1:23 PM UTC

audunw wrote: post #5

Imagine all the countless hour of pointless human labor that could be saved if we simply abolished patents. How many man hours has been wasted in these thousands of cases? And for what? How is patenting combination of spices going to increase innovation? But then again I suppose this "solves" the problem that there's not enough productive work to go around. In a 100 years perhaps all human endeavor will be about figh…

Patents and copyright are essentially regulatory capture, they didn't start out that way... but every time they start asking for more and more rights for longer periods of time or argue for rights of corporations rather than individuals who produced the works, they are in the territory of regulatory capture and rent seeking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

and rent seeking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking