Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–156 of 156 posts

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#151

Post by thaumasiotes »

danarmak wrote: post #83
thaumasiotes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think drug development is one of the strongest cases for a patent system. However: > many people would be unemployed This isn't an argument at all. It's better for people to be unemployed than to be employed in an enterprise that makes everyone else worse off. > and there would thus be no incentive to even develop new drugs Of course there would. We had drug development before we had patents.

> We had drug development before we had patents. How is that? We've had patents for centuries; we've had drug development for maybe one century.

We've had drug development for millennia.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#152

Post by rancur »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #118
rayiner wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is: what kind of valuable things would still be produced? You'll still get iPhones, but will you get ARM cores or Snapdragon chipsets or LTE or MPEG4 or pills that cure Hep-C? The bigger picture is that almost all hard R&D takes place under the umbrella of some sort of protection from copying. Intel spends billions a year on semiconductor R&D, and protects it with trade secrets. Pharma companies spend bi…

We could ask, though, which R&D gets protected by patents but not by copyright or trade secrets? Which R&D would not produce a return on investment if patents didn't exist? Drug research, perhaps, though we might be able to find other solutions there, or produce a much more limited form of patent for that industry alone. What else currently depends fundamentally on patents for its business model? Looking at the many…

media requires algorithm which isn't supposed to be patentable but because software is sOoOo complex it got shoehorned into patentability. I think we just need to loosen up the ties a little

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#153

Post by scotty79 »

rayiner wrote: post #95
icanhackit wrote: post #75

Looking at some of the for and against arguments regarding patents, let's play a mental game: would new, valuable things still be created if the patent system didn't exist? I think yes. The creator wouldn't necessarily benefit directly, but in a way we all indirectly benefit from new technology and ideas. Much the same as it would be better for the poor to have free or affordable essential health care, our society wo…

The question is: what kind of valuable things would still be produced? You'll still get iPhones, but will you get ARM cores or Snapdragon chipsets or LTE or MPEG4 or pills that cure Hep-C? The bigger picture is that almost all hard R&D takes place under the umbrella of some sort of protection from copying. Intel spends billions a year on semiconductor R&D, and protects it with trade secrets. Pharma companies spend bi…

Only 10% of important inventions are patented: http://infojustice.org/archives/31509

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#154

Post by scotty79 »

epmatsw wrote: post #81
icanhackit wrote: post #75

Looking at some of the for and against arguments regarding patents, let's play a mental game: would new, valuable things still be created if the patent system didn't exist? I think yes. The creator wouldn't necessarily benefit directly, but in a way we all indirectly benefit from new technology and ideas. Much the same as it would be better for the poor to have free or affordable essential health care, our society wo…

I think that's a misleading question. I don't think anyone is arguing that all innovation would go away if the patent system was removed. However, it seems possible that innovations that require high initial investment and low ongoing costs (medications, gene patents, etc.) would be produced at a lower rate if the incentives the current system provides were removed.

Tell that to ebola victims of last few decades. All this time all these wonderful incentives being in place and no progress on the cure. Americans get one good scare and presto, ebola vaccine in a less than a year. I wasn't that hard was it? Maybe those wonderful incentives are heavily misaligned with what desirable for humanity. Unless you thing that over-medicating Americans with vaguely effective but well advertised psycho drugs is preferable to preventing people from dying from ebola...

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#155

Post by adebtlawyer »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #122
rayiner wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is: what kind of valuable things would still be produced? You'll still get iPhones, but will you get ARM cores or Snapdragon chipsets or LTE or MPEG4 or pills that cure Hep-C? The bigger picture is that almost all hard R&D takes place under the umbrella of some sort of protection from copying. Intel spends billions a year on semiconductor R&D, and protects it with trade secrets. Pharma companies spend bi…

> protects it with trade secrets Trade secrets, unlike patents and copyrights, are not a legal construct. They're just things you aren't telling anyone.

They could exist without protection from the legal system, but to the extent that they are protected by courts, they are a legal construct. In the US, there is more to them than 'things you aren't telling anyone' and you are not necessarily without legal remedy if someone finds out your trade secret.

Re: Gene patents probably dead worldwide following Australian court decision

#156

Post by doki_pen »

teekert wrote: post #82
doki_pen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absurd, the price of albuterol has gone up 10 fold since patents have been reinforced on it. When companies have patents on life saving drugs they can charge whatever they want. If they have no patent, they are forced to keep the price low enough so no one wants to compete.

You do understand that the profits go partly back into making new drugs? And also partly into paying people with families? Again: I understand the need for keeping medicines cheap but the removal of patents seems like an overkill with adverse effects. > If they have no patent, they are forced to keep the price low enough so no one wants to compete. ... And no one feels like inventing a new drug that will immediately…

I was simply counter-pointing the contention that patents don't affect prices. You are making a completely separate argument.
Post reply on HN