How Patents Harm Biotech Innovation
from the scaring-people-off dept
Patent defenders often claim that patents are necessary because top venture capitalists would never invest without patents. And yet, we keep pointing to examples of some of the best venture capitalists in the business who are quite skeptical of patents. For the most part, those have been limited to software patents, but Brad Feld seems to have jumped the hurdle to recognizing it’s not just software patents that are the problem, and is digging into the research on how much patents have held back innovation in lots of other fields as well (Brad: if you want a list of more such research, let us know…). He’s written up a post about some upcoming research concerning patents in the biotech field, where he explains how patents are hindering innovation in that field as well by scaring off research into certain areas:
Regularly, patent advocates tell me how important patents are for the biotech and life science industries. However, there apparently is academic research in the works that shows that patents actually slow down innovation in biotech. The specific example we discussed was that there is increasing evidence that when a professor or company gets a patent in the field of genetics research, other researchers simply stop doing work in that specific area. As a result, the number of researchers on a particular topic decreases, especially if the patent is broad. It’s not hard to theorize that this results in less innovation around this area over time.
I can’t wait to see the final results of that study, as it would fit in well with a few other studies that have found similar results.
Filed Under: biotech, brad feld, innovation, patents, vcs
Comments on “How Patents Harm Biotech Innovation”
Suppose it is true that a patent issued stops others from researching further, that does not logically disprove benefits from patents as patent monpoly logic is that the awarded party will now invest further in the field (perhaps employ their own researchers) seeking profit.
If the research being granted patents is not profit seeking then that logic fails.
But supposing the research is profit seeking, does the logic stand that having been granted a patent it is encouraged to invest further?
Re: Re:
Often times many patent holders do not invest, instead holding the patent in case others invest and if they do they sue.
Re: Re: Re:
In fact, the overwhelming majority of patents do not make it to products, it could very well be that many of those patents that don’t make it to product by the patent holder will not make it to product by others because those others are afraid to invest anything and advance.
Not to mention just about all the evidence suggests that patents only hinder innovation and there is very little to no evidence suggesting the opposite.
Re: Re: Patentees Make Staggering Investments
1) Conception, the flash of genius.
2) Research to determine if it is something new.
3) Reduction to practice.
4) teaching via a patent, something which none of those bellyaching about patents have done.
5) Attempts to market the invention which often lead to someone copying it and then daring the inventor to do something about it. Most companies claiming they invented independently are lairs and they did steal it.
6) Clearly patents have not dissuaded or made people afraid because if that were the case you wouldn’t see the courts hammering members of the Coalition for Patent Fairness & Piracy again and again. They steal because on balance they get away with often enough to make it very profitable doing so.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: Re: Patentees Make Staggering Investments
Most companies claiming they invented independently are lairs and they did steal it.
That’s an interesting statement. Any studies that show that, or are you just going with your gut?
Lots of companies have policies to prevent employees from looking at patents to prevent the charge of wilful infringement.
But after number 4, you forgot a few steps. Cash checks from everyone wanting to use your patent, increasing the cost of producing those items. Or lockout the market you just taught with your patent for decades.
Re: Re: Re: Patentees Make Staggering Investments
Most companies claiming they invented independently are lairs and they did steal it.
Anybody claiming *that* is a liar.
Re: Re: Re: Patentees Make Staggering Investments
“the flash of genius.”
And here is the incredible part … this occurs in total absence of any prior knowledge in the field – because you know – that would be stealing.
“Research to determine if it is something new.
“
– Of course it is not.
“Reduction to practice.”
– Convince others to use your way of doing it
“teaching via a patent,”
– like that blackboard patent, the one where all 44 claims were invalidated
“Attempts to market the invention”
– force your crap product upon the unsuspecting public
” (mindless rambling) “
– Good night Ronny
Re: Re: Re: Patentees Make Staggering Investments
1) Conception, the flash of genius.
Almost always the simple lifting of an existing idea from one domain and planting it in another.
2) Research to determine if it is something new.
If done properly you would almost always stop here because it almost never is really – see 1.
3) Reduction to practice.
You probably can’t do it yourself so you hire someone else to do it for you.
4) teaching via a patent, something which none of those bellyaching about patents have done.
Hire a patent professional to rewrite it in incomprehensible patentese – so that by the time he’s finished even you have difficulty understanding it.
5) Attempts to market the invention which
basically fail so you sit there with a semi-dormant operation until…
someone else produces a successful product
(often lead to someone copying it and then daring the inventor to do something about it.)
at which point the “inventor” get’s envious and tries to sue the successful company for his “share” of the spoils.
Most companies claiming they invented independently are lairs and they did steal it.
No independent re-invention happens all the time (as you admit in 2)
6) Clearly patents have not dissuaded or made people afraid because if that were the case you wouldn’t see the courts hammering members of the Coalition for Patent Fairness & Piracy again and again. They steal because on balance they get away with often enough to make it very profitable doing so.
If your thesis were true then clearly the companies you talk about would:
(a) Know at the very start that they were using someone else’s invention.
and
(b) Therefore realise that it was in their best interest to stuff the inventor’s mouth with gold at the very start of the process.
The fact is that these large companies very often buy out small companies for precisely this reason. Often they get it wrong and never recover their costs.
In fact it used to be a semi-joke business model:
1) set up a service that looks exciting but with no clear revenue stream
2) sell out to Microsoft for a large cash sum before the second part of that statement becomes too obvious.
It would be simply stupid to risk major legal costs (and more importantly the interruption of your ability to deliver product or service) when you could buy out the inventor reasonably easily. You do not get to be a company the size of Microsoft or Google by being that stupid.
Re: Re: Re:2 Patentees Make Staggering Investments
The man is not listening to logic, he’s like a robot. Any attempt at reform is a personal attack on him. He’s one of those people who think everything is the way it is because of some mystical. infallible guidance that bestow the awe that is invention upon humanity. To question it’s omnipotent wisdom is heresy!
In short, hes a sick man…
Re: Re: Re:2 Patentees Make Staggering Investments
“It would be simply stupid to risk major legal costs (and more importantly the interruption of your ability to deliver product or service) when you could buy out the inventor reasonably easily. You do not get to be a company the size of Microsoft or Google by being that stupid.”
If you understood the history of this then you might understand had the we can steal whatever we want corporate culture came to be.
From the 1920 through the 1960 time frame large corporate crooks owned the courts and not one patent was upheld for small entities. They loved venue then. Decades of being able to take what they wanted with total impunity led to a very nasty culture developing in large companies.
Today these companies can steal up to $10 million at a time without being held accountable because of the cost of having one’s day in court. From ten to a hundred million they have a fairly good chance of getting away and it is only over a hundred million that they are certain to have their day in court.
At this point companies are stealing billions of dollars every year and only occasionally facing a $500 million dollar judgment. This kind of crime does pay.
This matters to you because they are undermining every developed country’s economy resulting in more job loss and less job creation.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: Re: Patentees Make Staggering Investments
If you really believe in ‘the flash of genius’ then you obviously have not done much development. Clever/novel techniques come from study and trial and error, not from some kind of lightening strike idea.
That fact is that most humans have a similar level of intelligence and people happen to come up with the same ideas a lot. That is not stealing, that is independent development/invention. The more folks that work on the same thing, the more folks that have the same ideas. Being the first one to the patent office with an idea does not make you special, just first.
Re: Re: Re:2 Patentees Make Staggering Investments
I have been inventing for at least 45 years and developed a great deal in that time.
Average IQ is 90-110, People at 50-60 IQ generally need assisted living. My IQ places me a one in a million. Einstein’s IQ makes me look dull (I spent many years studying relativity and for the most part understand it).
Beyond this it is a fact that IQ only measures a tiny facet of human capabilities and people with average or even below average IQ can and do invent but they may not be as effective at mastering a huge spectrum of skills which are necessary to succeed.
IQ is not linear, Think of it like measuring sound volume when a barely perceptible increase is actually twice the power.
As a young man I thought that people with high IQ would stand head and shoulders above their peers. What I found is that it is not this simple.
I like to compare the brain to a group of networked computer which have limited communication between them, where each computer is based on a different operating system and have often been modified to serve a purpose other then what they were intended to do (I have extensive engineering background in both hardware (digital & analog) and software (scores of languages and hundreds of dialects).
I have been mostly in management for the last twenty years or so but had the benefit of being involved in designing multiple processor real time industrial control systems at a time when micro programming was not well established.
Programmers come in a wide spectrum of capabilities just as people’s IQ cover a wide spectrum. Most programmers are performing low level repetitive tasks and are incapable of understanding the big picture but their egos preclude them from admitting even to themselves that they are limited.
It seems to me that much of the hostility shown towards inventors is related to the entitlement minded & mediocre software crowd who are looking for a free ride.
And there is little doubt that there are a few paid corporate stooges working on behalf of companies who are stealing who hope to avoid the consequences of their actions.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re:
“But supposing the research is profit seeking, does the logic stand that having been granted a patent it is encouraged to invest further?”
No, the logic is that if you are granted a patent you are encouraged to invest less since you already have a government granted monopoly share of the market and hence you have no reason to invest in further advancement of your patented product.
and if you can get patents on any potential competing products, more power to you, why invest in making products for those other patents when you already have a patent that monopolizes the market and you have patents on potential competing products.
Re: Re: Re:
Most advancement has occurred due to the ignoring of intellectual property, it’s only during historical times that intellectual property is taken seriously that innovation is severely slown down.
“Patent defenders often claim that patents are necessary because top venture capitalists would never invest without patents.”
Patents make people afraid to invest in fear of facing infringement.
ALSO
it would seem that because of the upcoming ACTA law here is one change your going to get
phramacies that buy generic drugs are getting there funding cut
SO mister american dont tellme your patent , copyright crap aint going to affect the people of canada. IT is just being done in parts and slowly to erode or freedoms and benefits we all across the world currently might enjoy
to this anti mike what a fraking retard you are.
if mike said that moses came down off hte mountain you’d be statings some bull about how A) it wasnt really a mountain
B) it wasnt really some guy named moses but someoen named BUSH
C) youd say it wasnt on stone and that it was on paper with pencil so we can all change whats written.
Re: ALSO
All I can say is that you probably want to check your tin foil hat, it appears not to be properly grounded. You missed the target entirely, but I guess this is just what the voices told you to write.
Re: ALSO
“SO mister american dont tellme your patent , copyright crap aint going to affect the people of canada.”
There are many small Canadian companies which profit handsomely using American patents. Patents are a great equalizer when small companies are based on a significant invention and some big company wants to squeeze them out.
Among Canadian companies the poster child of a serial infringer is RIM but if RIM got what they wanted in changes to American patent law a staggering number of Canadian companies would be screwed royally.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: ALSO
Rim – live by the sword, die by the sword
funny thing is, that sword was invalidated, but it still cut like a knife
The patent system – what a great tool
Re: Re: Re: ALSO
“cut like a knife”
You owe Bryan Adams some money. Please contact ASCAP.
Re: Re: Re: ALSO
The USPTO grants virtually every reexamination request and their first action in every case is to invalidate all the claims. This is especially true when the infringer is a well heeled politically active company.
In any event, this means nothing, what matters is what happens in the final appeal. If even one infringed claim stands, and usually this is the case, then the infringer gets hosed. That is why RIM paid out $612 million dollars.
What is funny is that they turned a $5-10 million dollar case into $612 million in the process. Eventually they will learn just as Microsoft has learned to some degree. Google will also learn in the same way. talking about not doing evil is not a good substitute for actually doing so!
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: Re:2 ALSO
Ronald, Ronald, Ronald,
Last week I asked you for a SINGLE shred of evidence to support your claims, and a SINGLE piece of evidence to disprove the nearly four dozen studies we’ve put forth over the years that suggest you are wrong.
You chose not to do so. Instead, you insulted me.
So, let’s make this easier. You made a specific claim:
The USPTO grants virtually every reexamination request and their first action in every case is to invalidate all the claims. This is especially true when the infringer is a well heeled politically active company.
Can you present the numbers to back this up?
Thanks!
In any event, this means nothing, what matters is what happens in the final appeal. If even one infringed claim stands, and usually this is the case, then the infringer gets hosed. That is why RIM paid out $612 million dollars.
Again, this is not true. The USPTO had just announced plans to invalidate all of the claims. You are simply making stuff up Ronald.
Re: Re: Re:3 ALSO
Mike,
We all expected that the USPTO would carry RIM water. There is quite a story behind that.
We are hopeful that the court will slap RIM’s and the USPTO’s paddies. While RIM seems to be unable to produce the more important inventions they need for their market we all know that they are very effective at lobbying our government and institutions.
So like I said before, those patents stand until the last appeal and if even one claim stood RIM would have been in very deep do-do. That is why they paid up and then spent a great deal of money trying to convince everyone that they were the victim.
The real victim was Thomas Campana Jr. who was a classic serial American inventor. Other American inventors have also been victims of RIM. Eventually they will get real justice.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: ALSO
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
If you were speaking on your on behalf you would nor list that set of bull shit affiliations.
Re: Re: Re: ALSO
Coward,
I invite you to also disclose who you are and what your affiliations are. We might then pay more attention to what you have to say.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
I always enjoy it when a corporation that doesn’t make anything, except lawsuits, wins billions of dollars from a corporation that actually does make things!
That doesn’t hamper innovation at all.
Re: Re:
They’re finding new innovative ways to sue people for no good reason 🙂 .
Re: Inventors make Inventions
And it is a fact that if they did not make those inventions that slimy big corporate ripoff artists could not claim that they were innovating by stealing those inventions.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Obviously anecdotal, but in 30 years of practicing law I have never met a company/inventor who received and patent and thereafter reduced R&D.
Moreover, I have never met a company/inventor who ceased R&D in a given area because of a patent granted to a third party.
Might there be some who do reduce R&D and try to rest on their laurels, or one who abandons work in a given area? Perhaps, but they are generally the exception to the rule, not to mention that in all likelihood they are in an organization that is totally risk averse and/or being advised by attorneys who do not have any significant knowledge of the business or fail to understand that the role of a lawyer in situations such as there are to try and lay out various options useful to get a client from point A to point B. It is not the lawyer who should be determining the route. It is the client.
Re: Re:
“Obviously anecdotal, but in 30 years of practicing law I have never met a company/inventor who received and patent and thereafter reduced R&D.”
As a lawyer you probably aren’t well qualified to make that judgment.
Also remember that whatever they paid you was money that could have been spent on R&D but wasn’t.
Re: Re: Re:
Perhaps I may be mistaken, but it may be the case that your comment re “could hae been spent” applies with equal facility to you.
As for my comment re R&D reduction, your comment is simply wrong. In fact, a significant part of my time was spent dealing with the “money holders” to ensure that R&D budgets did not take untoward hits in the event of a business downturn.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“Perhaps I may be mistaken, but it may be the case that your comment re “could hae been spent” applies with equal facility to you.”
You are mistaken, because money spent on me would have been R&D – it’s what I do…
“my time was spent dealing with the “money holders” to ensure that R&D budgets did not take untoward hits in the event of a business downturn.”
That doesn’t sound like the legal practice to me – more like business strategy. In that case it may be that the reason that you “never met a company/inventor who received and patent and thereafter reduced R&D.” was at least partly down to your own excellent efforts rather than the innate nature of the patent system.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“You are mistaken, because money spent on me would have been R&D – it’s what I do…”
IP is a way to channel money away from innovation and towards pointless litigation. As a society, which do we value more, innovation or litigation. If we value litigation more than we value innovation then our intellectual property system is great and is serving our values perfectly well.
Re: Re: TechDIRT Shill
And as a what—, how are you qualified?
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
The specific example we discussed was that there is increasing evidence that when a professor or company gets a patent in the field of genetics research, other researchers simply stop doing work in that specific area.
You sort of have to read the sentence twice to catch the sneaky part of it. Basically, they are discussion that there may be increase evidence (but no hard facts) to support their claims.
If a researcher is granted a patent in an area after spending time and money to get there, it is unlikely that they are just going to put something on the shelf and ignore it. That would be like spending millions to build the world fastest F1 car,and then never taking it to a race. I am sure some people might have done it, but those would be move exceptional cases.
If anything, it would seem more likely that once a patent is granted for something, that more R&D money would be thrown in to take it from “discovery” stage to “production stage”, where the people paying the bills could actually recoup their money.
The article goes against the basics of investment and return. Effectively, they would be calling biotech companies and their investors idiots.
As a side note, again this isn’t all bad. If you have a strong and patent concept in one area, is it not better than other moneys from other groups are spend in other areas, to advance other parts of Bio-science? Having a number of companies doing the same thing isn’t more likely to advance all of bio-science, now is it?
I also think that investors and researchers moving to other areas is a good business move. Why fight against an existing patent when you can go out and work other areas? The return on investment on duplicating someone else’s work is low, the return on a new discovery is much higher (one would think). Plus society benefits from a wider scope of scientific work, rather than it all being focused in a single area. Good for business, and good for people too.
Re: Re:
Hi five! some one gets it.
Re: The Tam Jam
“If a researcher is granted a patent in an area after spending time and money to get there, it is unlikely that they are just going to put something on the shelf and ignore it.”
You are confusing research with development. They do not go hand in hand for a number of obvious reason which I am not sure your are capable of understanding.
Much of research is not applicable directly to any product that will enter the marketplace. The majority of this research is publicly or cooperatively funded.
Science has always been and will continue to be socialistic in nature something else you seem incapable of wrapping your mind around.
What you do seem to see is profit, but you do not understand the true cost in terms of externalities. Capitilism in its most modern form only exists in the realm of profitability due to massive externalities.
What I think Mike as well as many other on this board are really arguing is the cost of the patent and copyright system goes far beyond those who they affect directly. For instance when a company patents obvious technology they prevent further innovation through litigation. Who knows how much more money could have been made by working off an existing concept. This is the true cost of the Intellectual Property system.
So if one company controls a concept through IP and say makes 10 billion in a year, that is great for them. If they were not in control several companies could make a combined profit of over 100 billion. Which of these scenarios benefits the majority?
Intellectual Property system will always be a tool or priviliedge that is designed around control. In the end you think your advocating for freedom, but in reality you have taken it away to benefit a minority.
If a researcher is granted a patent in an area after spending time and money to get there, it is unlikely that they are just going to put something on the shelf and ignore it. That would be like spending millions to build the world fastest F1 car,and then never taking it to a race……
….I also think that investors and researchers moving to other areas is a good business move.
These comments prove that you are ignorant of the way that science and technology advances.
Consider an example from an area where there are no patents to get in the way, theoretical physics.
In the 1950’s two exciting new ideas came forward Yang-Mills Vector bosons (extending electromagnetism to potentially explain nuclear interactions) and spontaneous symmetry breaking (invented by Goldstone, explaining how a set of physical laws with perfect symmetry could give rise to an observed universe that is asymmetric).
Both ideas had huge potential – and had they occurred in a field where patents were possible they would most definitely have been patented.
However neither was capable of any immediate progress because each had a major problem that blocked further development so both went “onto the shelf”.
This type of thing can happen in any field.
Now if other researchers had ignored these ideas because they were patented and gone to work elsewhere that is how it would have stayed.
However there are no patents in theoretical physics so Peter Higgs was able to put the two ideas together and solve the problems of both.
Had this been a practical, patent infested, field he would have been able to do nothing without getting a licence from both Goldstone and Yang and Mills. If either had turned awkward then progress would have been stymied.
My bet is that this phenomenon has already occurred in biotech, halting progress in some areas.
Re: Re:
What I find amazing is that you typed this all out, and didn’t even catch the reason why your point isn’t good.
However there are no patents in theoretical physics so Peter Higgs was able to put the two ideas together and solve the problems of both.
Had this been a practical, patent infested, field he would have been able to do nothing without getting a licence from both Goldstone and Yang and Mills. If either had turned awkward then progress would have been stymied.
It’s a good story, but you miss one of the most important points, and the reason why patents generally are not a bad idea:
If nobody is using them, they are worthless.
Even if the two previous steps had been patent, they were both useless as they were. Both parties had spent time, money, and effort, and had reached a dead end. Their efforts in both cases were a “loss”. For many companies, these types of “got a patent but can’t use it” are negatives on the books, things that draw the company down.
So each of them would more than likely be not just willing to license their patents, but more than happy to find a way to monetize something that is otherwise a negative. heck, I wouldn’t be shocked in many cases if they would sell the patents outright for less than they cost to research, because that gets rid of much of the negative on the books.
You cannot ignore the economic aspects of patents, nor can you ignore the basics of profit and loss on a company or individual’s actions.
If Mr Higgs had an use for the two patents that together would make something profitable for all, it is likely that all would want to participate. If he was shrewd, he would buy the patents or license them without disclosing his concept.
Money is a great motivator, and the money tied up in a non-functioning patent is often huge.
Re: Re: Re:
You assume that patent holders always act rationally in their own best interest. Sadly history shows that this is often not the case. There is an innovative computer language that had a major aspect patented by one company but through accident of corporate dealings the copyright on the compiler ended up elsewhere. Since neither party was prepared to licence the other the language never got anywhere. Even where rights holders are prepared to deal the trend seems to be to be greedy and ask for unreasonable terms.
The basic point is that Professor Higgs would have had to gamble on both prior patent holders being willing to deal and hence would probably have opted to work on something else. (Remember it was you that said that that would be a good idea.)
Re: Re: Re: Re:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximization_%28economics%29
There will always be exceptions to the case, but most people (in western cultures) are motivated by or have a need for money. Money allows us to do whatever we like (example, posting on chat boards instead of wearing a suit and saying “yes boss”), money frees us.
If you have spent time and money to develop something, and you have no way to turn it back into money, that may stop you from being able to move on to the next thing.
Think of it as supply and demand. The new developments and patents are a supply. Without a product to turn them into, there is no demand. Without demand, the supply has no price. But when Higgs came along, each of those patents now had some value. However, as there wasn’t a lineup of people trying to get them, it is down to “what will you pay”?
It is incredibly unlikely that two patent holders, both with dead patents that will expire in time, would just sit on them and let them grow mouldy rather than enter into a deal to turn them into a profit center. I know some would, but then again, some people paint their houses purple or pink. Exceptions do not craft the rules.
To be honest, Higgs always had a third choice, which would be to go ahead, with the knowledge that he might get called out and dragged to court. In the mean time, he can take the profits and invest in his next good idea, spring boarding off the locked up patents into new areas that aren’t patented. That is one of those cases where the speed of the courts (very slow) and the speed of discovery of violation (potentially also slow) is in his economic advantage.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Right, investment is not relevant.
Utility is.
I think society should be recognized as a person legally so it can own things and start charging others for using it.
Society gives shelter to companies so they should pay society, society gives them the raw materials(it citizens).
Society should start hoarding patents and copyrights and start hiring its own people to start their own research and development and bar companies from entering its domain.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
There will always be exceptions to the case, but most people (in western cultures) are motivated by or have a need for money.
Speak for yourself.
Most innovation in human history has been driven at least at first by curiosity – money usually comes along later – and my point is that the mechanisms we have devised (supposedly) to facilitate money making have an awkward habit of getting in the way.
None of the people in my example ever made any money from their ideas.
It is incredibly unlikely that two patent holders, both with dead patents that will expire in time, would just sit on them and let them grow mouldy rather than enter into a deal to turn them into a profit center.
but it happens all the time – this blog is full of examples of this “dog in a manger” attitude.
Historically something like this has happened on many important occasions – most notably the steam engine, photography, and aviation (in America).
People like money yes – but many people like control even more and will sacrifice money in favour of control.
I have seen this happen at first hand to a form colleague at work. He was offered a large contract by a major company to implement some technology he had been developing. The catch was that he would have had to cede control of the development to them. He turned them down because he didn’t want to give up control.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Most innovation in human history has been driven at least at first by curiosity – money usually comes along later – and my point is that the mechanisms we have devised (supposedly) to facilitate money making have an awkward habit of getting in the way.
If you want to look far enough back, that is the case, but in modern times, that is no longer the case.
Curiosity is nice, it is even a requirement to have the desire to go look for something, but without the tools to go looking (such as in bio) you might as well stay home. We are no longer in a situation where grand discoveries are made for a few dollars and pot of coffee. The bio stuff is eating untold millions of dollars a year.
Essentially, mankind has picked all the the low hanging fruit from the discovery tree, and now you need better tools and a lot more effort to snatch the fruit higher up the tree.
He turned them down because he didn’t want to give up control.
There are some people doing that, but most of them end up getting wiped out by other who develop around them and make their great idea moot.
It isn’t about the money for the inventors themselves, but because it is more and more expensive to do thing, it is about money for someone. They want to get some sort of return for their money, and a warm feeling about advancing mankind another inch isn’t going to cut it.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
True and single companies are not cutting either there needs to be more openness so people everywhere can do more things.
Big companies get their funding from the people make no mistake about that, it would be cheaper to people pay universities and private laboratories to do research then to let a company do it, I just don’t understand why people think they need the big pharma boys, they don’t everything they need is already in place and they probably could do a better job if they shared the job around the world like SETI, simulations for compounds that could lead to cancer treatments etc this all can be done without the Big pharma.
Basically big pharma spends more begging for people to spend then they do developing new things. Who needs that?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“We are no longer in a situation where grand discoveries are made for a few dollars and pot of coffee.”
Some fields require a large capital investment to do research in, this is true — but as a blanket statement, what you say is certainly not the case.
There are many fields where great advances can, and do with great frequency, come from “hobbyists.” Computer software and astronomy are two examples off the top of my head.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximization_%28economics%29
There will always be exceptions to the case, but most people (in western cultures) are motivated by or have a need for money.
You post a link to wikipedia in support of your argument – ask yourself – how is wikipedia funded?
In this case I think that “The medium is the message”….
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
How is it funded? Mostly by begging.
See http://www.therealcuba.com/Poverty.htm
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
In reference to wikipedia, the anti mike states:
“How is it funded? Mostly by begging.”
Not sure what it is you are trying to say, but the truth of your statement has no bearing upon the validity of wikipedia data.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“Not sure what it is you are trying to say, but the truth of your statement has no bearing upon the validity of wikipedia data.”
He is showing his disdain for the fact that Wikipedia “asks” you for donations. In his “world” Wikipedia needs to petition the government for protection of its business model and then force everyone to pay through a new Wiki Tax. That would maximize profit and therefore be a good thing in TAM’s eyes.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
How is it funded? Mostly by begging.
Exactly my point.
They aren’t money driven. The begging is only needed to cover the tiny proportion of Wikipedia’s costs that HAS to cost actual money (the servers). If you cost the time of all the people who contribute to it it would be many times the sum they need to raise in cash.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
It is incredibly unlikely that two patent holders, both with dead patents that will expire in time, would just sit on them and let them grow mouldy rather than enter into a deal to turn them into a profit center.
Actually it’s quite likely that at least one would do that because they might also have a very profitable business doing things “the old way”.
What would de Beers do with a patent on making artificial diamonds.
Re: Re: Re:2 In love with money
“There will always be exceptions to the case, but most people (in western cultures) are motivated by or have a need for money. Money allows us to do whatever we like (example, posting on chat boards instead of wearing a suit and saying “yes boss”), money frees us.”
Freedom is an inalienable right that is not granted through money. You really don’t understand human nature if you think the only thing that motivates society is cash. Your infantile understanding of humans is the reason you just don’t get it. In another 30 or so years you may have some intelligent things to say, right now you just stick your foot in your mouth and seem to be loving it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
the anti kike wrote;
“Money allows us to do whatever we like “
This illustrates one of the core problems within society.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
opps
Re: Re: Re:
Scientist from 46 states are complaining about the lock down of bio-engineered seeds already.
http://www.biofortified.org/2009/03/guest-blogger-raoul-adamchak-on-corporate-transparency/
Or how about a guy who made his own database and was sued by a company that patented something similar?
http://harmfulpatents.org/
Or
Re: Richard is the one who is IGRORANT
by icon Richard (profile)
If a researcher is granted a patent in an area after spending time and money to get there, it is unlikely that they are just going to put something on the shelf and ignore it. That would be like spending millions to build the world fastest F1 car,and then never taking it to a race……
….I also think that investors and researchers moving to other areas is a good business move.
“These comments prove that you are ignorant of the way that science and technology advances.”
Companies who do research and then do not profit from it expire with a whimper.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: Richard is the one who is IGRORANT
At least he can spell or type, whatever.
Have another drink ronny
Patents.
Patent troll aka NPE(Non-practicing entity), non-manufacturing patentee, patent marketer, patent dealer.
Created new costs on the market.
– Designing around: companies/individuals can go around if possible and that could be a low cost solution or used as leverage to obtain some license deal, but is very limited.
– Patent Watch: companies/individuals have to watch the patent system to determine any risks to their business.
– Clearance Search: companies/individuals
– Patent infringement insurance.
– Patent aggregation aka patent clusters, patent hoarding
All those cost are helps a “gridlock economy”
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-gridlock-economy.htm
Does it benefit creator?
No it doesn’t, individual creators are to fragile to contest anything and will depend in larger bodies that become larger and stop caring about the little guy, with the obvious consequence that is better to sell those rights to someone else who then exploits and gain all the protections and with time only a few players remain in the field creating a de facto monopoly.
Another thing that happens is that companies especially big ones patent everything they can including competing technologies and lock the competing ones away so no one can use them to threat their main product is lawfull anti competitive behaviour and it is harmful to society and the economy which in turn with time affects the jobs of everyone as other players that are not constraint by those rules move in and take the markets and jobs of the locals.
This is not a problem only for patents is much worst in copyright and is somewhat abused in trademarks.
Another name of this phenomenon is the Tragedy of the anticommons
Re: Patents.
All those cost are helps a “gridlock economy”
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-gridlock-economy.htm
So what you are saying is that socialism is the answer? All research and developments should be funded by the government for the public’s good, and the resulting products should be given away?
What you pointed to was a theory, a concept, from a man who appears to be advocating the limiting of private property. That would be called socialism by most. Is that what you want to say?
Re: Re: Patents.
God no!
The result of the research should be public to anyone to use and not patentable as music also should not have copyrights and artists should return to live gigs.
Fallow the lead of Glaxom:
http://www.examiner.com/x-8543-SF-Health-News-Examiner~y2010m1d20-Malaria-battle-goes-open-source-Glaxo-offers-free-data-lab-expertise-to-outside-scientists
Research can be done in the open source way, where the knowledge is free and the players strive to make a living out of that collective knowledge it works really well.
Re: Re: Re: Patents.
The result of the research should be public to anyone to use and not patentable as music also should not have copyrights and artists should return to live gigs.
It gets us back to the same thing, you elimiinate the profit motive, you eliminate entrepreneurship, and you replace it with a socialistic state.
Sorry, Cuba and Russia have both proven that doesn’t work worth a crap, and China is proving that moving towards a profit motivated society advances things faster than a command economy does.
Re: Re: Re:2 Patents.
If it does how Red Had, Google and others still make money and have a very high incentive to compete?
What that do is fragment the market and let other in who otherwise would not be able to play and that in turn creates jobs.
Now show how that doesn’t work.
Re: Re: Re:3 Patents.
I cannot say that I follow your question, can you please restate it, remembering that I cannot read your mind at a distance.
Re: Re: Re:4 Patents.
“I cannot say that I follow your question, can you please restate it, remembering that I cannot read your mind at a distance.”
You just got owned TAM. It is an example of how open business models without IP can be extremely successful. Cooperation has always been the key to success despite your reasoning.
Your attitude around money is rather disgusting. You do not understand that your logic is as inbred and ethnocentric as possible when it comes to economics. Your political commentary is a sad joke that demonstrates you have no understanding of the way things really work.
Open mouth and insert foot – TAM’s new policy
Re: Re: Re:2 Patents.
Funny your comment about China because I know the government owns everything and tells companies what they can and cannot do they limit ownership and it is only open in certain “special commercial” areas with the government actively ignoring IP laws so if you want proof that it works there it is, weak IP laws encourage innovation and growth, while stronger IP laws do exactly the contrary.
Now if we go to the case of medical databases, in Europe they are smaller and less useful than in other countries.
You don’t need a bigger carrot you only need a small one to entice companies, they will be fighting for it even for tinny little scraps and that is the beauty of greed it turns intelligent people into idiots it appeals to the selfish nature in all of us and it doesn’t need to be big.
Re: Re: Re:3 Patents.
Actually, it isn’t the big end of china where you can see the biggest difference, as much as the small end. The number of “mom and pop” stores is increasing rapidly, small independent workers running their own companies is increasing, and so on. That brings in a bigger network of suppliers, transport, distribution, production… it’s all the ways that China is moving forward (and where places like Cuba fall behind).
Even at the big end, the government doesn’t own everything. Rather, rules in place assure that Chinese companies are the significant partner in any operation that an outside company might want to be part of. Investments into China are at an all time high and growing, such that the government is actually taking steps to cool the economy.
You don’t need a bigger carrot you only need a small one to entice companies, they will be fighting for it even for tinny little scraps and that is the beauty of greed it turns intelligent people into idiots
yup, but it you remove the entire profit motive (or make the profits risky, see Cuba or Venezuela), people will tend to stay out of the business. If the only advancements in science and technology are made because some individual inventor felt like tinkering, progress would effectively stop. Money is the lube, profit motive is what makes that money available to lube, which pays scientists and inventors to actually do the work.
Re: Re: Re:4 Patents.
Scientists don’t do it for the money, most scientific research till very recently(80’s) were all focused on the basic research and thus had no practical use and were not the driver, the driver to do it was to get recognition and there is nothing to indicate that that changed also inventors have been inventor as long as the human race, do you know who invented all the machinery used in ancient times? How Rome, Persia the Incas and other became the super powers of their times? it will not end contrary to what you are stating which is a misrepresentation of not only history but humanity and the “lube” as you called would still be there is just not going to be “big” as in the case of moms and pops business in China they are only possible because there is no IP enforcement in China that is why they are able to operate and prosper others competitors are not going banging on their doors wanting them to have licenses and applying huge fines, there is no inspections in China yet, but they will come this is the golden age of innovation, there is new boom after 300 years or so, the moms and pops you talk about are using the collective knowledge to build something, it is not locked away from them.
By the way Cuba has a economic embargo by the U.S. that really hurts them and still they have hospitals with the same level of quality as the U.S. explain that away please.
Here people making money out of free knowledge:
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/make_volume_21_desktop_manufacturin.html
It is hurting the development of the original?
http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome
There is even a 80.000 prize to people to build a better one to give it for free LoL
Again, profits alone are not the sole reason people do things, there is necessity, conflict, cooperation, recognition and other factors that stimulate that.
Another example, linux created a whole eco-system based on it, you probably are using it in your router, and some other digital devices the other operation system most used was TRON your microwave probably use it and it is free.
The only thing open initiatives take away is a bit of the greed and the conflicts that arise from it, it is a better economical model and it is less stressful economically which lowers the bar for entrance in the market place and creates increased reasons for business to be auto regulated or else people choose others it doesn’t create big companies that are too big to fail and increases security and quality, and includes a bigger number of people who got an interest on things.
Re: Re: Re:5 Patents.
Again, profits alone are not the sole reason people do things, there is necessity, conflict, cooperation, recognition and other factors that stimulate that.
I didn’t suggest that the inventors themselves are doing it for money. My entire point is that development costs money, a well fitted bio lab might cost millions to build and outfit, and millions more to operate, and the people who put that money on the table want to make their money back and more. Someone is paying the bills, this isn’t happening for free.
By the way Cuba has a economic embargo by the U.S. that really hurts them and still they have hospitals with the same level of quality as the U.S. explain that away please.
http://www.therealcuba.com/Poverty.htm
I think that pretty much answers you outright. As much as Cuba has bright lights in a few areas, they still run many of their cars on cooking oil, and many of their citizens live in abject poverty… in a socialist state. Most of them aren’t innovating, they are just trying to get enough to eat and not get locked up for trying.
Re: Re: Re:6 Patents.
Wrong! development cost resources not money.
Those resources can be gathered by people and used, today we use money to gather those resources but there are other means.
Now even money can be gathered in other ways to pay for research and development.
Opendental is a free software that is made by a dentist and it gather resources in new ways and the guy is doing ok.
Clinics and hospitals can finance research and development, the public through communities can do it, big pharma gather those resources through sales that doesn’t mean there is no other way to do it, what it means is that people are accustomed to this way now, and it is risky, inefficient and unbalanced. Why people has to pay a big company to do work for them? why they cannot do it themselves? is there a lack of good facilities in universities? is there lack of good facilities for hire? no there is not, the only thing lacking is the will to change or the vision. People, hospitals and clinics pay through the nose already for the research that is not even the big cost for medicine, marketing is 2 times the size of the budget for development according to some. Why are the people paying for this and being allowed to be raped at the store?
About the Cuban poverty that only makes more impressive the medical achievements how is that a people that have nothing can do better than a country that has everything?
But I will concede and agree with you, a communist state is not a good idea, but also absolute ownership on IP is not a good idea either.
Food for though.
Professor Samuel Bowles is even more “radical” them I’m and people listen to him.
http://sfreporter.com/stories/born_poor/5339/all/
Re: Re: Re:7 Patents.
Wrong! development cost resources not money.
I’ll remember to use that line when I try to push an idea to market. I will tell them to work for free, because it doesn’t cost money, it only cost resources.
But I will concede and agree with you, a communist state is not a good idea, but also absolute ownership on IP is not a good idea either.
There is no absolute ownership. Patents are for a VERY limited time, copyright is for a limited time as well. They are generally very narrow in context. As I said before, you know that copyright isn’t over broad when you go to a major bookstore and see tens of thousands of different books for sale, often multiple books on the same subjects.
Since there is no absolute ownership of IP, the rest of your argument is moot.
Re: Re: Re:8 Patents.
Let whom work for free?
Big pharma?
Don’t think they like that idea but here is a guy who worked for free.
Dr. Hunter Patch Adams since 1972, located outside of Hillsboro in rural West Virginia. There is no mal practice litigation over there.
They don’t sell anything and still get money to do things and you insinuate it is not possible to do it well go to hillsboro and see how much you are wrong.
No their are not, they get extended through the reapplication of similar patents with really tiny tweaks to it and the patent agency clear all of them. Then those patents have a very powerful influence in a system that can cost 1.5 million dollars to defend before trial and 2.5 million total. J&J didn’t get 1.7 billion recently without even going to trial? With that kind of numbers no one will dispute a medical patent without some support of some kind and that can be done or by the government building a clearing house for things people could manufacture and that can be of use to everyone it would give the people something to build upon, those things would go out with a guarantee from the government that no one can sue them for using that stuff to make money or the public could build their own database just like the FOSS have done and defend it with the money of many people who are part of it, the people are disorganized right now but not for long.
Book-stores LoL
And that particularly major book-store would be owned by Barnes? or the other handful of big publishing houses that amassed an enormous catalogue and don’t let others in. The same major book-store’s that forced thousands of pops and moms business into bankruptcy and didn’t elevate jobs or salaries? Well I guess is time to pops and moms force them out of the job and try something else because clearly this isn’t working for a lot of people.
The same mega book-store’s that take from the public domain and claim copyright on everything (copyfraud) which is a crime and it depends on a criminal court to be resolved.
Did you know that mathematical formulae’s don’t change that often and that a book written in 1850 is the same thing as the modern ones? I just read one about calculus and it is the same with the modern counter parts and I thought it was more easy to fallow than modern ones people in the 1800’s had better analogies than today top of the class books, how is that possible? Those old books had better stories in it and taught the same things and they are still relevant and that is not only for math, old books for engineering are as actual as some I have seem.
Show us all the good that big companies bring to us, that the people themselves couldn’t do it cheaper.
The funny part is that I’m the communist when I don’t want government regulation and in fact I’m talking about deregulation and less government participation while you are the one defending a government regulated market place who really is the commie little one.
Re: Re: Re:2 Patents.
“Sorry, Cuba and Russia have both proven that doesn’t work worth a crap,”
You’re better off being poor and ill in Cuba than in the USA.
Also Cuba has done pretty well considering the treatment they have had from the US over the years. How it would have worked out if the US had played fair with them is not at all clear.
Plus – consider this – there is far more socialism in the US than capitalism.
Almost every US family operates socialism internally.
Most US corporations have internal structures that are socialist most of the time.
The free market only operates in a very limited domain – of “external transactions” between organisations.
The key to making the system work is to apply the free market where it works and avoid insisting on it where it doesn’t
Re: Re: Re:3 Patents.
You’re better off being poor and ill in Cuba than in the USA.
yes, using US and Asian techology. They have great schools, but little of their own medical advances or equipment.
Re: Re: Re:4 Patents.
Of course you are talking about China because it can’t be Japan that has a GINI of 38% or Tawain and South Korea that are medical tourism hot spots were the level of medical assistance far surpass the U.S.
Or maybe you are talking about the poor countries like India that are developing innovative ways to treat people and is being used as a testbed for ultra-low cost medicine.
Labs made out of paper
$25 incubator for babies
India Ancient Knowledge 1 x 0 Modern Science
Google have a very nice impact for now on the world.
Google impact in India
South African born youtube superstar
The guy was catapulted into instant stardoom could he be the next vanilla ice? would he maintain his roots and give the people what they want?
Die Antwoord – Enter The Ninja (Official)
Saw this on Boingo Boingo and the fun part is the guys make their music with no real studio apparently they did it all at home and if the little interview in the one of the clips is real then the guy still lives with his mom and pop 🙂
But we all know that artists can’t be born from the internet right?
No possible good music that kind that is entertaining is possible without the help of big bucks right?
Yah! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!
Re: Re: Re:4 Patents.
“es, using US and Asian techology. They have great schools, but little of their own medical advances or equipment.”
You seriously expect a country the size of Cuba to produce all it’s own technology?
Of course there are plenty of countries that operate what you would call “socialised medicine” which do contribute more than their fair share to the global pool of medical technology. (eg UK, Canada and, yes Russia)
Re: Re: Re:4 Patents.
“yes, using US and Asian techology.”
Ethnocentrism raises its ugly head. I guess in your perfect world these technologies would be locked up by copyrights and patents.
When you put imaginary systems ahead of the welfare and well being of the human race you have failed not only yourself, but everyone else as well.
Re: Re: Re:5 Patents.
Ahh, the new “fake nick” of the day.
I think I hear your mommy calling you for dinner little boy. Don’t forget to eat all your veggies.
Re: Re: Re:6 Patents.
Sorry, didn’t mean to use words and concepts too big for your brain to understand.
TAM – Open mouth and insert foot
Re: Re: Re:6 Patents.
Obvious dick is so obvious.
Re: Re: Re:6 Patents.
Since when is TAAM (The Anti-Anti-Mike) a fake nick? Oh, sorry, reading comprehension is so difficult for you. I forgot.
Re: Re: Patents.
God no!
The result of the research should be public to anyone to use and not patentable as music also should not have copyrights and artists should return to live gigs.
Fallow the lead of Glaxom:
http://www.examiner.com/x-8543-SF-Health-News-Examiner~y2010m1d20-Malaria-battle-goes-open-source-Glaxo-offers-free-data-lab-expertise-to-outside-scientists
Research can be done in the open source way, where the knowledge is free and the players strive to make a living out of that collective knowledge it works really well.
Re: Patents.
“Patent troll aka NPE(Non-practicing entity), non-manufacturing patentee, patent marketer, patent dealer.
Created new costs on the market.”
NO, an inventor created new markets or business opportunities which would not have been possible without their work and they taught their invention with a patent.
First come the inventor and then come the parasitic patent pirates.
At least in America patents are a property right and when someone steals or tries to steal our property we can and do kick the crap out of them.
Big companies do file hordes of minor incremental improvement patents but those can almost always be worked around because they are significant inventions.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: Patents.
“an inventor created new markets”
really? and all this time I thought it was the marketing people – go figure
“parasitic patent pirates”
you mean the NPEs?
“patents are a property right”
Sounds more like an opinion
“we can and do kick the crap out of them”
you can and will end up in the big house – say hello to bubba
“minor incremental improvement patents”
are you referring to submarine patents ?
Re: Patents.
“Does it benefit creator?
No it doesn’t, individual creators are to fragile to contest anything and will depend in larger bodies that become larger and stop caring about the little guy, with the obvious consequence that is better to sell those rights to someone else who then exploits and gain all the protections and with time only a few players remain in the field creating a de facto monopoly.”
Patents do benefit the inventor and that is why big companies are crying about patent trolls. They stole our property for a long time with impunity. We developed very effective counter tactics. Today they are having to pay up, at least some of the time when the dollar value of their theft rises to the level that it is economical to sue their ass.
Now they whine about vicious patent trolls who are really aggrieved patent property right holders. They push Patent Deform. TechDIRT spouts the same kind of nonsense as the Piracy Coalition. This is a strange set of coincidences.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: Patents.
Yeah ronny, I’m sure that your colleagues invented nature, or have a patent on gravity. But hey, the rest of the world is pirating these inventions, and guess what … we are all laughing and having a good time doing it.
Abuse of patents has set Biotech back
Remember that, although GM crops are widely grown in the US, in Europe they have not got beyond the “trials” stage and there is widespread consumer resistance to imported food that contains GM. Most major supermarkets avoid using it in their own brand products and labelling rules are strict.
Now the consumer resistance is mostly caused by (in my opinion) unfounded health scares BUT the technically well educated part of the population don’t speak out in favour of GM (as we do in relation to other groundless health scares like the MMR vaccine). The reason for this is the abuse of patents by the biotech companies (esp. Monsanto).
The well know (in the UK) food critic Jay Rayner made this point on the BBC’s “One Show” (a mass audience early evening program) just last night.
Re: Abuse of patents has set Biotech back
“… in Europe … Most major supermarkets avoid using it in their own brand products and labelling rules are strict.”
– Europe has strict labeling rules? Good for them.
The US has no such GM requirement. What you buy may have GM in it and the consumer has no way of knowing
“Now the consumer resistance is mostly caused by (in my opinion) unfounded health scares”
– Care to elaborate ? For example, why are the concerns of educated professionals in the field of genetics and biotech considered by you to be unfounded? Extra points for refuting published studies showing the potential harm.
“the technically well educated part of the population don’t speak out in favour of GM (as we do in relation to other groundless health scares like the MMR vaccine).”
– I would guess they do not speak out in favor because they do not favor GM. Why do you equate genetically modified food to measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. These are two completely different issues.
“abuse of patents by the biotech companies (esp. Monsanto).
“
– Yes, Monsanto is evil for many reasons.
– I’m sure that if the well known UK food critic Jay Rayner says so then it must be true. /s
One last item. If GM ingredients in our food supply are no big deal, then why not include this information in the labeling which up until now has provided a useful list for consumer reference. Prior attempts to address this question include things similar to “if there is no problem with GM them why bother listing it”. This is a non answer and is rather insulting to the consumer.
Re: Re: Abuse of patents has set Biotech back
Care to elaborate ? For example, why are the concerns of educated professionals in the field of genetics and biotech considered by you to be unfounded? Extra points for refuting published studies showing the potential harm.
There have been many health scares
See http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/GeneticRoulette/HealthRisksofGMFoodsSummaryDebate/index.cfm
However the UK government commissioned a scientific review
See http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/gm/crops/faq.htm
which conclude (amongst other things) “that there is no evidence to suggest that GM foods pose a greater risk to human health than their conventional equivalents”
Why do you equate genetically modified food to measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. These are two completely different issues.
They are both health scares, both unfounded, however many people defend MMR but few (in Europe) defend GM. The difference seems to be down to the patent related bad behaviour of the companies involved. Do I have to spell everything out to you?
I’m sure that if the well known UK food critic Jay Rayner says so then it must be true.
No but it does show that this is his opinion. In the context of the argument that was the only point I needed to make.
As far as labelling goes, the fact is that european consumers don’t buy GM produce given the choice. (Otherwise why do so many supermarkets here make a point of sourcing GM free ingredients – which is not easy in a world market dominated by the US). The GM companies have been lobbying here to remove the labelling requirement – they obviously believe that it damages their interests.
Re: Re: Re: Abuse of patents has set Biotech back
People should be scared about GE Crops
http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm
Nobody yet confirmed it is safe and according to that study there are clear problematic signs.
Re: Re: Re: Abuse of patents has set Biotech back
I am not convinced by a feel good UK government faq.
Are you aware of any real data from research performed by professionals in the field which refutes the work of their colleagues?
You seem rather sure of yourself. I’m curious whether it is due to actual knowledge or supposition. Possibly you have investments in the industry and are simply a stooge.
Re: Re: Re:2 Abuse of patents has set Biotech back
No, I dislike GM as much as you – just for a different reason.
Patents.
IP laws essentially kills the innovation incubator, sterilizes the environment and nothing new is able to grow or develop.
Companies are moving their R&D and workforce away from those markets and at the same time asking for more protections is a vicious cycle.
That forces society to find alternatives that are cheaper and can be sustainable that is why people start to cooperate and create “open” alternatives that tries to go around those extreme limitations.
The push for more limitations will increase the adoption of open alternatives even if their are not as good as something else but given time everything matures but there are limitations to this approach.
Patented seeds are going out with explicit clauses saying “it is prohibited to be used in research”
http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#documentDetail?R=090000648084de39
Companies stopping research through patents
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/5633269/
http://www.grain.org/bio-ipr/?id=560
Maybe the best outcome from open initiatives would be transparency, where GE scandals would not be able to happen.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GM_Food_Nightmare_Unfolding.php
Maybe it is not in the best interest of society to have people have the ability to “own” life or research.
I’m very certain that society is best served not owning any IP.
Culture and sciences flourish for thousands of years and nobody owned ideas or expressions, maybe the best owner is society if corporations can be a person in the eyes of law maybe is time to make society a citizen and start making it own things.
Open Initiatives and Jobs.
http://opensource.com/education/10/2/moodle-driving-jobs-education
Moodle is creating jobs, it has no protection at all and it is driving creation of local jobs with a development global development community.
I am sure any scientific field could be done that way, with open research done it globally and the results applied locally and there would be no litigation because no body would own the knowledge.
Re: Open Initiatives and Jobs.
“because no body would own the knowledge.” No one owns the knowledge now and in fact to varying degrees patent increase knowledge. What inventors own is the right to exclude others from practicing the invention. There is an important distinction in that anyone can use the disclosed knowledge to invent another way, perhaps a better way of doing what the invention teaches.
people’s distaste for having to pay others to use their invention is supposed to motivate them to further advance progress. If they succeed they can charge for the better solution which they produced and if they fail they have to pay or not use the invention.
What we see on TechDIRT are a bunch aspiring parasites, dullards who are apparently incapable of creative thought or understanding that those who invent have complied with the contract offered to get us to teach and we take a very dim view of those who steal our patent property rights.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: Open Initiatives and Jobs.
dullards ?
really? is that the best you have to offer?
Re: Re: Open Initiatives and Jobs.
Why spend your time here listening to us dullards then? Why not spend your precious time inventing things, and protecting the rest of the world from the “dullards” here on Techdirt…
Re: Re: Re: Open Initiatives and Jobs.
As I have stated before, making fun of TechDIRT dullards gets the attention of people who are not quite as dull as the normal fare on TechDIRT. It is an effective way of getting people who are worthwhile to join our efforts to protect America’s patent system from the dullards 🙂
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: Re:2 Open Initiatives and Jobs.
“It is an effective way of getting people who are worthwhile to join our efforts to protect America’s patent system from the dullards :)”
18. Ronald J. Riley’s Fraudulent Business Plan:
The tax exempt organizations create an appearance of legitimacy, particularly coupled with the hijacking of the lobbying group’s name. Riley is constantly soliciting funds, yet reports on a charitable fundraising site that his operating costs average approximately $85.00 per month. Plaintiff believes that these businesses are false fronts raising tax-free contributions that are then funneled into Riley’s personal possession and used to pay personal living expenses and operating expenses of his private business enterprises. In addition, Riley’s consulting business and other financial enterprises are the sole beneficiary of the “tax-exempt” enterprises, and all of the businesses and corporations formed by Riley are for his sole and exclusive personal benefit. Indeed, his “tax exempt” website carries extensive advertising for Mr. Riley’s private, non-exempt business enterprises and operates as commercial, for profit companies.
http://www.dozier-internetlaw.org/
Yes, i am sure that “the worthwhile” are flocking to your cause in droves, Ronny
Re: Re: Re:2 Open Initiatives and Jobs.
As I have stated before, making fun of TechDIRT dullards gets the attention of people who are not quite as dull as the normal fare on TechDIRT. It is an effective way of getting people who are worthwhile to join our efforts to protect America’s patent system from the dullards 🙂
Ronald, can you state how much money has been given to you by the poor independent investors you seek to protect? How much money has been donated and how has it been spent?
Thanks.
Re: Re: Re:3 Open Initiatives and Jobs.
This information is available on the IRS 990 which we file.
All the money raised goes to the cause, I am not paid and in fact I have sunk a great deal of my own money into inventor advocacy for about twenty years.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
anti mikes on the juice again
so what your saying is that linux with all those volinteers sucks and isn’t very safe and secure , socialist or gathered communities in a set goal can never accomplish anything , instead we have to have no services form govt no food banks no help for foreign disasters , we need to invade everyone not thinking like us and enslave them to our ideals.
and lastly we need to relocate all Australians cause we need the island again cause were dropping all the criminals there no matter the offense and each month we’ll drop a nuke on them.
YES BE ANTI MIKE TODAY hes da man
remember anti mike russian communism had a name called an oligarchy where it wasnt so much communist as it was like a bunch a dictators tha voted a leader.
and funnier still how some of the tech form such a obvious back water nation cant possibly ever be better then american right? BETTER do more reading there paliachi. YOUR SO OFF THE MARK on this its laughable.
Re: anti mikes on the juice again
nothing funnier than someone trying desperately to stuff words into my mouth.
Too bad they are all wrong.
Re: Re: anti mikes on the juice again
“Too bad they are all wrong.”
Too bad this guys political commentary is closer to the mark than you will ever be able to achieve with your ramblings. That is pretty sad really.
Sounds to me like...
Patents *may* encourage the patent holder (provided they aren’t simply trolls or interested in stopping research in an area). However they discourage researchers in general.
So a few researchers may do work in an area, but it would be better overall if many researchers were able to do independent work on a subject.
Sounds to me like...
Patents *may* encourage the patent holder (provided they aren’t simply trolls or interested in stopping research in an area). However they discourage researchers in general.
So a few researchers may do work in an area, but it would be better overall if many researchers were able to do independent work on a subject.
Sounds to me like...
Patents *may* encourage the patent holder (provided they aren’t simply trolls or interested in stopping research in an area). However they discourage researchers in general.
So a few researchers may do work in an area, but it would be better overall if many researchers were able to do independent work on a subject.
Not Innovators
Mike Masnick,
You really need to quit using the word innovation when talking about copying and those who who want to ride the coattails of inventors. They are not innovators and venture capitalists who try to make a quick buck with little risk by backing those copying others inventions are as much parasites as the people they back.
Most certainly you have the right to root for vultures if that is what you want but give us all a break and stop claiming that they are innovators or that the studies they buy are anything more than propaganda.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Not Innovators
What?
You are delusional at best.
Do you really think that every invention is the result of an original idea? Certainly they did not copy anything from anyone else. Please, it is you who needs to knock it off.
Re: Not Innovators
Ronald Riley,
You need to shorten your signature.
Most certainly you have the right to root for vultures if that is what you want but give us all a break and stop your propaganda.
Jose Burgos
Re: Not Innovators
I have a hard time believing you are here on your own behalf. From that lengthy signature, I assume you are here to do damage control when the patent system or IP are discussed.
Aside from that– remember Ronald, humanity stands on the shoulders of giants. Imitation is a crucial part of learning, and it leads to new ideas.
Re: Re: Not Innovators
Chill,
How about you disclose who you are and what your affiliations are so that I and other readers can place your comments in context? After all, Mike Masnick has set a good example by disclosing his connections to a number of companies associated with the Coalition for Patent Fairness & Piracy.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Re: Re: Not Innovators
Nice side step.
Was that a waltz?
How about actually addressing the post to which you replied.
to wit:
… “humanity stands on the shoulders of giants. Imitation is a crucial part of learning, and it leads to new ideas.”
Re: Not Innovators
Ronald,
I have presented dozens of studies showing you are wrong, and have asked you to present evidence to support your position.
You have not.
Instead, you have insulted me personally, and then began to insult my parents as well.
I’m sorry if I find it difficult to take you seriously.
If you have evidence, present it.
Mike
Re: Re: Ronald cannot be taken seriously
I’m named on a couple of patents. I support some patent reform but not throwing out patents all together. I think Ronald’s comments on techdirt do more to hurt inventors than his comments do to help inventors. Perhaps he is very passionate and that comes through but he also comes across as a complete nut job. Ronald makes lots of statements and provides little to no support for them.
Re: Not Innovators
ok.. I try to stay away from these postings.. but this seems to be someone that has obviously bought into a philosophy dogmatically at a point in time, when it was somewhat rational (the patent system in 1993), and has failed to see what it has become. I suspect you either have rose colored glasses, or this is how you “earn” a living. Not to diminish the importance of your perceived cause but I must know.. what the hell does “make a quick buck with little risk by backing those copying others inventions” mean? Do you have any concept of risk as it pertains to investment? I mean, I find this either incredibly disingenuous or child like naivety. Patents are considered a liability for small startups in IT, not just the patents that others in the industry hold on using a Bunsen Burner, but the patents held by the startup it’s self. The obvious exceptions being the IP litigation business, or setting up a company for the sole purpose of M&A.
Patents are not a positive attribute when investors look at risk associated with seed and 1st-2nd round funding. Do you know why that is Mr, Riley?
-ps I’d tell you to update your website, as it looks like it was made by the kids from “saved by the bell” – but I can point to several patents you would have to infringe to bring it up to date.
Fringe studies funded by who?
Mike Masnick,
You clearly are not stupid, I base that assessment on the fact that you grasp other issues just fine. So how can we explain your incredibly ignorant stand on patents and inventors? Are you blind in just this case or is there another reason for your consistently ignoring massive evidence of the impact patent property rights have in motivating inventors?
Tell me Mike, do you toil away on behalf of your clients for the fun of it, expecting no compensation? Why would you expect inventors to do so?
As far as I can, tell the clients we see on TechDIRT are part of the Coalition for Patent Fairness and Piracy. I take that seriously 🙂
I also appreciate the fact that TechDIRT has served to bring many inventors to us. Your positions on patents are so outrageous and ignorant that you draw inventors, you insult inventors and they appreciate my toying with you.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: Fringe studies funded by who?
Ha! I ask Ronald for evidence and he provides none and instead insinuates, falsely, that I am a paid shill for large companies.
Ronald, no one pays for these posts, and I attack the big companies when they abuse the patent system just as much as the small ones.
Anyway, I’m still waiting for the evidence. Come on Ronald? Or will you just insult my parents again?
Re: Fringe studies funded by who?
Aha !
Here is the sole reason for Ronald posting at this site:
“I also appreciate the fact that TechDIRT has served to bring many inventors to us.”
Kinda lame, but I understand why people BlogSpam.
Re: Fringe studies funded by who?
“Tell me Mike, do you toil away on behalf of your clients for the fun of it, expecting no compensation? Why would you expect inventors to do so?”
Mike has never stated inventors do not deserve to be compensated. Only that they do not need special privileges or rights to do so. If you can’t make money off your invention that is your fault, not the governments.
The only “toy” here is you. Your inability to even add one interesting thing to the conversation proves why you would advocate for system of privileges designed to appeal to the intellectually devoid people of this planet.
Re: Re: Fringe studies funded by who?
Mike has never stated inventors do not deserve to be compensated. Only that they do not need special privileges or rights to do so.
Yet, he is unable to show this to be true. There is zero explanation of how the pharma companies would be able to continue to pay for research, development, and the ever more expensive approval process to get new drugs to market, nor any consideration for the legal ramifications of cutting any corners and getting it wrong.
We just wouldn’t have the same levels of research and development if the retail price of medicines was set only by marginal costs.
In fact, this pretty much explains where Mike has a problem with real world business. Marginal costs are often the small end of the expenses in many fields. This is one of those blank spaces between the facts that he rarely addresses.
Re: Re: Re: Fringe studies funded by who?
“Yet, he is unable to show this to be true.”
He has provided plenty of examples where in the absence of Intellectual Property things go just fine. You may disagree with them but they still speak to the truth.
When you advocate for special privileges in our society the burden of proof should be on you, not the other way around. The real crux of IP has always been control and has nothing to do with recouping R&D costs like you keep blathering about.
“We just wouldn’t have the same levels of research and development if the retail price of medicines was set only by marginal costs.”
So what if you sell like this? You think you cannot fund R&D through other means, that only profit from selling can drive this development?
Last time I checked you can thank most of your modern technologies to taxpayer run government programs like NASA and the Pentagon.
Now provide your examples of why your way is the only right way. Or you can just open your mouth and insert foot again 🙂
Re: Re: Re:2 Fringe studies funded by who?
Again, I just think you are being a baiting troll, so I choose to limit my answers to you. Where you are baiting, I am not biting.
The examples of Italy and Swiss companies are nice, but I would love to see where they were getting their funding from, and where they were actually selling their products. I can’t help but thinking that they may have patent the medicines in other jurisdictions. I don’t have the full history of Pharma close at hand, but I am sure you will have all the details for us, right?
So what if you sell like this? You think you cannot fund R&D through other means, that only profit from selling can drive this development?
If your only income covers just your products and a small margin of profit, you don’t have the money to play the game again. Further, the drug companies would not have the money to fund the R&D on the many drugs and treatments that either never make it to the market, or may take decades to turn into viable products.
How would you suggest they make money? if they sell their developments to another company who is only charging marginal costs, they can’t afford to pay for it. The money has to appear somewhere in the game. If all of the market is “marginal only” pricing, it will fail. Mike seems to ignore it, and you are entirely ignoring it. Are you related?
Last time I checked you can thank most of your modern technologies to taxpayer run government programs like NASA and the Pentagon.
Well all know that government run programs are the most cost efficient way to develop things. It’s “FREE!”, except that you pay big taxes to support it, and companies do as well. Now, funny, if a company is selling at “marginal price only”, they won’t make enough money to pay taxes, thus making it impossible for the government to fund things.
Wait, I don’t want to confuse you with cause and effect, it’s not clear that you have studied that yet, I don’t think it happens until 8th grade.
Re: Re: Re:3 Fringe studies funded by who?
And why should they “have” to be able to recoupe anything?
If they can’t research and put anything new they should just die or this is communist too?
If they don’t have a model business that don’t work why should people be penalized for it? Why should others not be able to take the torch a little bit further?
Biology was done in the 1700’s by people who where only interested in advancing science, like Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, and actually people can replicate his microscope with any glass they found in the house today, more importantly microscopy today can be done on the cheap because anyone can do it high quality cheap microscope, was that liberty that enabled great discoveries, and what was true then it is true now we don’t live in a different world, the power of connection and freedom of information never was more visible then on the internet that is hailed everywhere as the “super highway of information” and it is something so useful that had transformed the way we live today, that is power.
Why does it cost so much?
Clinical data can be done in a distributed form:
Now we have open source for clinical trials, too, but instead
Openclinica
– Discovery of compounds are simulated and we have the computer power to do it on the cheap.
– We can do distributed genetic mapping and even children have the ability to test DNA today.
Why does it cost billions?
Open Source Food and Genetic Engineering – Michael Pollan
We have all the tools to do it in a scale that big pharma could only dream on. Why exactly do we need those people to sell us anything? Why do we need them to research anything? and why do they need to exist in the first place?
And if they don’t need to exist why do they have to have any profits at all?
Re: Re: Re:3 Fringe studies funded by who?
“If your only income covers just your products and a small margin of profit, you don’t have the money to play the game again.”
As explained one company does not have to do all the research and development themselves. In fact the multitude of rather useless drugs hitting the market has shown that the current system is no longer developing the kind of drugs we actually need. This is directly connected to companies catering to the interests of the bottom line rather than the interests of the patient. I know this is hard for you to understand, but it does require look outside your mother’s basement windows to see what is actually happening in the world rather than just playing imaginary economics.
“If your only income covers just your products and a small margin of profit, you don’t have the money to play the game again”
Are you seriously this dense? Take a look at cancer research or AIDS research. As a matter of fact TONS of research and development is conducted outside of your preferred model of development. You really need to open your eyes if you want to make these sort of comments.
“Well all know that government run programs are the most cost efficient way to develop things. It’s “FREE!”, except that you pay big taxes to support it, and companies do as well.”
You can make all the free market quips about our government you want to, but last time I checked your still a citizen in one of the better countries out there. Where is your proof that these government run research projects that you owe all your modern technology to were run inefficiently?
“Wait, I don’t want to confuse you with cause and effect, it’s not clear that you have studied that yet, I don’t think it happens until 8th grade.”
The only person confused here is you.
TAM – Open mouth and insert foot
I am waiting for a rational explanation.
“Ha! I ask Ronald for evidence and he provides none and instead insinuates, falsely, that I am a paid shill for large companies.”
All I am doing is trying to figure out why you take a stand on patents which is totally at odds with the facts.
We do not have a situation here where you are missing small nuances of reality, rather we have gross misrepresentation. I ask why?
Perhaps you have compartmentalized intellectual property issues to an area of your mind where logic is tossed out? Maybe you were brainwashed at some point?
I am waiting for a rational explanation.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: I am waiting for a rational explanation.
it seems, sadly, that this is the first recourse of the IP Maximalists. “anyone who disagrees with me must be a mentally defective shill.. and a pirate, who pillages poor defenseless inventors(probably while drinking Counterfeit Rum!). We need stronger laws to protect us from these monsters before they destroy truth, justice and apple pie.”
I only speak for myself.
President and CEO of Tek’a Co
Alliance for Tek’a Preservation
Caretaker of Tek’as Cat on behalf of the cat.
Re: Re: I am waiting for a rational explanation.
Right, the whole problem with our approach to date is summed up in the first sentence. The word “pirate” is used to link the gross injustice of concept ownership, with the more moderate and globally understood act of Copyright infringement. Whats surprising to me is that guys like this are even taken seriously.
To be clear, we should make every effort to remove this shelter from men like Mr. Riley. He is clearly out of touch with what’s going on in the world today. If his position had to stand alone without the cover of “IP” they would have done away with process/idea/software patents ten years ago.
Re: I am waiting for a rational explanation.
A rational explanation of what? Mike asks for an evidence based debate, which is more than fair Mr. Riley. You should just turn over some of this evidence.. I mean it’s frikin ever where just grab one good example – then, you will have undermined his position. I’m not talking about saying things like “it’s a fact” and that he ignores “massive evidence” while there exists “Countless studies” to prove your point, but actual evidence. The logic you use is might work at one of Glen Beck’s Tea parties, but saying that faith is evidence of God is a poor argument Mr. Riley.
I am trying to speak on behalf of those without a lobby.
Titles: Aspiring Parasite, Master Dullard
Presedent: http://www.tofui.com
Founder: Opponents Of Oppressive Patent Systems (OOOPS)
Re: I am waiting for a rational explanation.
All I am doing is trying to figure out why you take a stand on patents which is totally at odds with the facts.
If that were the case, then you would have an argument. Unfortunately, the facts disagree with you. I have discussed the facts at great length. I have looked at the numbers, explained the economics, and asked you to provide a SINGLE shred of evidence that proves the nearly 4 dozen studies we’ve talked about wrong.
You have not done so.
We do not have a situation here where you are missing small nuances of reality, rather we have gross misrepresentation. I ask why?
If I am missing reality, why do the studies all support what I say? And, clearly, if reality supports your position, there must be some evidence. Why have you not provided any?
I am waiting for a rational explanation.
I have been more than rational with you, Mr. Riley. In response you have not responded rationally. Instead, you resort to insults (though, thankfully, this time around you have left my parents out of it).
So, once again, I will ask you to present evidence that supports your position, and which counters the dozens of studies that have shown you are incorrect.
Re: Re: I am waiting for a rational explanation.
“If I am missing reality, why do the studies all support what I say?”
Because you ignore all the stuff which doesn’t support your position.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Re: I am waiting for a rational explanation.
“All I am doing is trying to figure out why you take a stand on patents which is totally at odds with the facts.”
You are NOT entitled to your own facts dumb ass.
Where is your proof? Mike has presented far more than anecdotal evidence at this point and the only thing you have proven is your a pompous ass.
We have all heard you theory about Mike and it sounds good on paper, but Mike has denied it. Perhaps the truth is that Mike truly believes this while your the paid shill who thinks that he is right beyond a shadow of a doubt with a complete disregard to critical thinking. I think that is closer to the truth.
Re: I am waiting for a rational explanation.
“Conserving the American Patent System is the only way to preserve our technological and economic future!
(This is not alarmist, this is serious and it is true!)”
oh Ronald, you so silly
Science:
Cabbage PH test
How much that costs?
Why would a pharmaceutical / biotech company develop anything if is not going to be patent-protected? The moment they come up with a good product they would be swamped with generic copycats. Selling t-shirts is not going to pay the bills.
Re: Re:
The pharma/biotech company develops stuff, first and foremost, because they want a product that they can sell.
The patent only gives the company a monopoly on the product for a limited amount of time. This temporary monopoly allows the company to maximize profits from the product’s sales while there still is no competition. Time will come when this monopoly expires and competing products can be made and sold by other companies; by this time, the original company should have already benefited from its temporary monopoly of the product.
Re: Re:
Apparently, according to you, the pharmaceutical / biotech industry does not want to compete.
Re: Re: Re:
Not what I said. Without patent protection, there would be competition…in making existing drugs more efficiently and cheaply, but there would be very few new drugs (of course I cannot prove this, as it has not happened yet, but it seems logical to me). Currently drug patents give the holders a brief competitive advantage allowing them to maximize profits. Without patent protection why would profit-seeking businesses develop new drugs?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The increased competition drives innovation. The new, more competitive, marketplace forces companies to develop ways to do things cheaper, faster and better. This benefits everyone, especially folks that need these drugs. A big part of the problem currently is that your ‘brief competitive advantage’ is not so brief.
Especially when it comes to medications that people need, it makes no sense to ensure high profits for some at the expense of everyone else. We need to get back to developing drugs because people need them not because we can maximize profits. When is the last time we cured something?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not what I said. Without patent protection, there would be competition…in making existing drugs more efficiently and cheaply, but there would be very few new drugs (of course I cannot prove this, as it has not happened yet, but it seems logical to me)
Ok, well, how would you feel about evidence in the other direction? Let’s start with Switzerland in the late 19th century. It did not have a patent system that covered chemicals, and Switzerland very quickly became a huge chemical powerhouse (at that time it was focused on dyes, but those companies are what became the modern pharmaceutical industry), creating all sorts of new things. The market was competitive and the incentive was to keep innovating and creating new things that topped those that came before.
In fact, it was the chemical industry that fought against patents for a very, very long time. But once foreign pressure became too strong, the Swiss gov’t folded, and competition decreased, the number of players in the market rapidly decreased.
Or, let’s look at Italy in the mid-20th century, when its patent system did not cover pharmaceuticals. What happened? Again, highly competitive, and very innovative. Many new discoveries were made there, and the industry was one of the largest in the world. So what happened? Pressure from big foreign pharma… a new patent rule… and the pharma industry in Italy is decimated.
Currently drug patents give the holders a brief competitive advantage allowing them to maximize profits. Without patent protection why would profit-seeking businesses develop new drugs?
To sell the drugs? Even in today’s world, the first mover commands a *significant* premium over generic copies. There’s still a tremendous value in being the first to the market. Alternatively, you could come up with other business models as well. What if health insurance firms did drug development themselves — and it gave patients more reason to go with that firm, knowing that they had better/cheaper pharma available?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
The belief that Europe was without medical and chemical patents is something of a misnomer. When a company developed a new drug/chemical the process was patentable. A rival could only produce a “clone” product if they could develop a new process of manufacture…hardly a simple exercise. The Germans had process patents BEFORE the 20th century, while the Swiss got process patents in 1907. This also explains the innovation and creativity demonstrated in these countries (often in developing new processes!).
It should also be noted that although companies in these countries were not permitted patents for specific chemical substances, they were not prevented from registering patents (and earning monopoly revenues) in countries where such patents were permitted.
As for Italy, they were a major producer and exporter until 1978, when they they were no longer permitted to “pirate” drugs developed elsewhere – after that, as you say, they were “decimated” – this seems logical – I would not expect an industry focused on producing generics to be competitive at developing new commercially viable products. In their defense, Italy at this time (end of the 1970’s and early 1980’s) faced a variety of general problems (stagflation, civil unrest, oil crisis, etc), which may also have contributed to the collapse of the industry.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
The belief that Europe was without medical and chemical patents is something of a misnomer.
I never said they did. I gave two specific examples in two specific countries. Where did you read into this that all of Europe did not have patents?!?
The Germans had process patents BEFORE the 20th century, while the Swiss got process patents in 1907. This also explains the innovation and creativity demonstrated in these countries (often in developing new processes!).
Yes, the Swiss developed many new processes PRIOR to having patent protection. Earlier, you, claimed this was impossible. Now you admit it? So I’m guessing this is your way of saying you were wrong?
It should also be noted that although companies in these countries were not permitted patents for specific chemical substances, they were not prevented from registering patents (and earning monopoly revenues) in countries where such patents were permitted.
Indeed. But I don’t see how that makes a difference one way or the other. If you look at the actual history, many companies gravitated TO Switzerland BECAUSE they weren’t hindered by bogus patents. In other words, there was MORE incentive to start new firms in Switzerland.
As for Italy, they were a major producer and exporter until 1978, when they they were no longer permitted to “pirate” drugs developed elsewhere – after that, as you say, they were “decimated” – this seems logical – I would not expect an industry focused on producing generics to be competitive at developing new commercially viable products. In their defense, Italy at this time (end of the 1970’s and early 1980’s) faced a variety of general problems (stagflation, civil unrest, oil crisis, etc), which may also have contributed to the collapse of the industry.
This assumes, totally incorrectly, that the entire industry was based on generics. That is untrue. While it is true (and not at all surprising) that many firms did, in fact, focus on generics (the use of “pirating” is misleading, and designed to steer the debate off course — you only use it because your defense here is so weak), there was a great many Italian pharmas who created new innovations and compounds. That you choose to ignore this is odd, but telling.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“many companies gravitated TO Switzerland BECAUSE they weren’t hindered by bogus patents.”
Back then it was Switzerland (and Sweden at one time) because they didn’t have many IP laws. Guess what it is now? ISRAEL. Yes, Israel constantly gets ranked as one of the most innovative nations and it’s exactly BECAUSE they have the least strict IP laws (though that’s never mentioned in the ranks of course). Companies that want to innovate migrate there because they don’t want to be faced with bogus lawsuits. Yet the Israelis force IP on the rest of the world in a way that benefits them (ie: Disney) at the expense of everyone else but they won’t dare let IP laws get in the way of their progress.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
That is exactly right. I know this first hand.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
To avoid confusion on my part I will respond in piecemeal fashion…first Italy:
I must apologize for any inaccuracies on my part, I made the assumption that the Italian pharmaceuticals industry was indeed “decimated” (as you said) after 1978, and simply tried to explain it. I apologize for this – I should have studied the facts more closely. Here they are:
Before patents were introduced:
1. In 1967 the Bank of Rome estimated that 90% of Italy’s pharmaceutical companies were imitators (sorry for calling them pirates).
2. It was quite common for these imitators to take 25% of an innovators market share immediately after introduction.
3. In 1975 over 60% of pharmaceutical sales in Italy were by foreign firms.
4. In 1964, only 39 firms of the Assofarma association had research labs of any kind. (Assofarma firms accounted for 98% of basic pharmaceutical materials actually made in Italy).
5. Between 1961 and 1964, research expenditure by these 39 firms amounted to US$61m. By comparison the 4 major Swiss players spent US$220m in 1966 alone.
After patents were introduced.
1. Before 1978, there were no Italian pharmaceutical companies in the list of top 100 pharmaceutical companies, 10 years after introduction of patents there were 7.
2. Between 1978 and 1993 employment in the Italian pharmaceutical industry increased by 9%, a significant chunk of this due to increases in R & D.
3. After adjusting for inflation, the Italian pharmaceutical industry spent approximately 3 times more on R & D in 1993 than in 1978.
4. Between 1978 and the early 1990’s Italian pharmaceutical revenues increased more rapidly than GDP.
5. Between 1978 and 1987 the market share of foreign firms in the Italian pharmaceuticals market decreased.
[source for much of the above: Intellectual Property Protection and Industrial Growth by George Korenko]
Suggesting that the Industry was decimated as a result of the 1978 laws is therefore not accurate at all. Suggesting that innovation was impaired in some way does not appear to be accurate either. That you choose to ignore these facts is odd, but telling 🙂
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
And now for the rest..
General point: I did not say that it was impossible for innovation to take place without patents, but rather that I did not believe (in the context of the modern pharmaceuticals industry) that it made much business sense to spend money developing new drugs if other companies can simply copy (the Italian story prior to 1978 suggests that I may be right). (My fault if I was not specific enough.)
It can take over a decade to develop a new drug, and can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Why make this investment if an imitator can churn out copy-cat products? Surely it would be more lucrative to focus on developing efficient production techniques, marketing and brand-building? “Creative imitation” is not a bad business strategy if you can get away with it.
Switzerland – I did not restrict my response merely to what you had said, but chose to expand my comment to Europe broadly as Europe in the 19th and 20th century is often used as an example of innovation without patents.
With regards to Switzerland specifically, I pointed out that they have had process patents for most of the 20th century, so one has to go back to the 19th century to figure out what the Swiss situation was without patents.
Firstly, there was not much a of global pharmaceutical industry back in the 19th century, which is why patent critics inevitably end-up trying to compare the dye and chemical industry in the 19th century to the pharmaceuticals industry in the 21st century. I am not entirely sure that this is a valid comparison.
The processes required to bring a product to market in the dye industry in the 19th century are not that similar to the processes required to bring drugs to market today (clinical trials anyone?). Public health interests (and indeed patent legislation) require a certain amount of transparency when it comes to drug formulations, etc which would not have applied to 19th century dye sellers.
Secondly, the lack of patents does not necessarily imply that the Swiss were unable to protect there innovations. Research by Petra Moser suggests that 19th century companies, in countries without patent protection, tended to focus there efforts in sectors where secrecy could achieve similar results as a patent. This is not a bad position to be in. The Swiss were able to copy their foreign competitors (patents require a certain amount of disclosure), and at the same time prevent (or delay) their foreign competitors from copying them (via trade secrets), or even patents in the foreign countries. This coupled with a myriad of other reasons would certainly have made Switzerland an attractive place to do business.
I cannot challenge your contention that the Swiss were innovative before patents as this is difficult to quantify (count patents?). Petra Moser has however done work in this field. Moser studied the catalogs of the 19th century world fairs and found that the Swiss were major exhibitors (per capita). Although this research is usually used to justify the view that the Swiss were very innovative (before patents), I think presence at a trade show is just as likely to be indicative of superior marketing (which fits in with my views quite nicely).
Finally, patents do not seem to have harmed the Swiss pharmaceutical industry in any real way as they are still major players today.
PS What is with the sudden moderation of my comments 🙂
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
The fact is that there is absolutely ZERO evidence that patents and intellectual property help promote innovation and PLENTY of evidence that they HINDER innovation. But you ignore this fact simply because the intellectual property system unfairly benefits you.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Germany was not discussed prior to your comment. As to the Swiss, 1907 is the 20th century, not the 19th, thus refuting that argument.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“There’s still a tremendous value in being the first to the market.”
Ehhhhhhh not exactly in this case, I think the hook here is marketing. The first to market pays out of pocket for the drugs popularity. So if, a new Viagra competitor came out tomorrow, they would send in the reps to push samples, buy all of those ads with the fast taking guy who tells you that you’re going to die if you take it.. etc.. The thing is, it takes relatively little time to knock off most drugs. So reallly as soon as they succeeded in establishing a market worth taking, the generics would just ship at that point. As we all know, they have major advantage over the brands. Most pharmacists automatically substitute. Sooo that wont work IMHO.
The idea of insurance companies manufacturing, on the other hand.. Thats a great idea. Hmmm what if, manufacturers offered insurance or uhh prescription subscriptions? for the drugs in there portfolio. They could cut out the middleman and ship direct. If HIPAA permits, that could be a golden marketing opportunity (depending on the drug). That may not be enough, but it’s a start. Yeah I’m sure there are other ways to monetize. Value added proposition, or through direct savings, as in the case of insurance companies manufacturing pharmacy.
Then theres also option C, stop spending billions on marketing 🙂 I remember a time when the prescription drug manufacturers didn’t advertise on TV, let alone every second of every day.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I’m guessing that you are in favor of the annual 20% Health Care premium increases. Hint, Pharma has something to do with it.
There are many out there who are not.
Re: Re:
Why would a pharmaceutical / biotech company develop anything if is not going to be patent-protected? The moment they come up with a good product they would be swamped with generic copycats. Selling t-shirts is not going to pay the bills.
Because they will be ahead of the competition.
Look at the Italian Pharma industry pre 1978 – they had no patents at that time but still invested in R&D.
See
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/ip.ch.9.m1004.pdf
Summarised thus:
“if patents were the source of medical innovation as claimed by intellectual monopoly apologists, the large historical and cross country variations in the patent protection of medical products should have had a dramatic impact on the pharmaceutical industries of the different countries. In particular, at least between 1850 and 1980, most drugs and medical products should have been invented and produced in the United States and the United Kingdom, and very little if anything in continental Europe. Further, countries such as Italy, Switzerland and, to a lesser extent, Germany, should have been the poor sick laggards of the pharmaceutical industry until the other day. Instead, as everyone knows since high school, the big time opposite is and has been true. This is as macroscopic a contradiction of the intellectual monopoly apologists’ argument for patents in general, and for medical patents in particular, as one can possibly imagine.”
Re: Re: Re:
The work you quoted from by Boldrin & Levine is titled “Against Intellectual Monopoly” …say no more.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The work you quoted from by Boldrin & Levine is titled “Against Intellectual Monopoly” …say no more.
There is an awful lot of well documented research presented in that book. Are you saying we should dismiss all of that because you happen to not like the name (a name that is actually clearly supported in the details of the text)?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
This is exactly why I like to post as AC.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Dont judge a book by its cover
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“The work you quoted from by Boldrin & Levine is titled “Against Intellectual Monopoly” …say no more.”
Excuse me but why should the fact that the title of the paper tells you its conclusions mean you should ignore it?
On that basis you would of course disbelieve this paper
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m218g51124862r22/
as well.
Re: Re:
Hi Michael,
This is one that I’ve thought about for sometime, and you’re right. These companies would not invest the massive sums of money needed to get new drugs to market if generics were available the day after they were released. That said, allowing a purely profit driven system of innovation dictate what medications come into being has proven to be somewhat of a problem in it’s own right. I don’t think I have to illustrate how many pills come out to treat illnesses that are more buzz words than medical conditions.
When was the last time the industry invented a cure for anything? If they found a cure for HSV for example, would it see the light of day given the staggering amount of money brought in by Valtrex? I of course use this example, since an HSV vaccine -primitive has existed for at least 10 years (that we know of) and to this day it’s poorly funded descendent’s are only available in Norway (I think other parts of EU might have one by now, I’m not sure). Rather than create a vaccine, they created management drugs. That’s good business, but poor social ethics. The argument of the industry has always been one of : “would you rather we left these people to fester!”. Which is an evidence of absence argument, an exploit of human reasoning used to paint complex scenarios as a simple fundamental truth, siting it’s own logic as evidence to support that logic. In other words, “in spite of” is not the same as “because of”. Would there be any new drugs if they couldn’t patent them? You betcha! There’s more disease in the world today, than at any other time in human history. Of course, you can’t recoup investment selling cures for HIV to African villagers, any more than you can selling T-Shirts to Hipsters.
Ok, all that aside, Sure.. just like other things which exist in a tangible manor, drugs need a window of ROI recovery. The issue with drugs are two fold:
1. We give them protection at the wrong stage of development. Big Pharma locks up entire branches of research so that they alone control, just about every aspect of that *type* of drug.
2. They have a fixed window of 20 years, It’s compleatly wrong for this type of “invention” in a world of real time innovation. The industry itself has pointed out, that it forces drugs out of development prematurely. Who knows what breakthroughs never were, because of patent exhaustion. In a way, I think of Drugs as being more akin to movies than inventions. The development investment is all up front, the marketing investment peaks then diminishes within the first several years.. and the medium is inexpensive to produce and distribute. It would be a tragedy though for these medications to be locked up for that long.
I don’t have any real answers mind you 🙂 but I think maybe… If we said, ok show me a working drug, and enter trials we’ll give you semi-protection at the engineered molecular level, and if you’re approved you get an 8 year monopoly for that specific compound. Not, file a patent, spend 12 years in “research and development” while stockpiling hundreds of patents that don’t directly pertain just to hold up a competitors progress. I have a really long winded example of this too if you want it 🙂
ehh I’m tired, didn’t get much sleep last night.. if any/all of this is lucid.. I apologize 🙂
Re: Re: Re:
I agree to a certain extent. Although I shudder at the alternative to the profit motive – I certainly do not trust bigoted politicians to make these choices (and they are the alternative.)
re: patent lifespan – a “use it of lose it” rule might also be a good idea.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, there are no easy answers to this one. At least I dont see one. I think at this time, there’s this Red Scare McCarthy thing going on. It’ll pass, and perhaps the global community could be encouraged to collectively invest in public domain drug research. Which can then be handed off to generic manufacturers. (Thats a joke, BTW.. The US is a wholly owned subsidiary Pfizer)
It’s amazing how IP/Patents exist under the pretext that they promote transparency yet the ACTA meetings, which contains IP issues, is are being done in secret.
If nobody is using them, they are worthless.
NO thats as others have said because some large company, as IBM even said patents loads of stuff so tha if they get sued they have neough patents to sue on anyone back to make it not worth your while. THATS NOT business its warfare. ITS same thing the usa did with nuclear weapons and russia. BOTH BUILT up sooo many weapons that if either side uses them they get poofed. LITTLE small countries that do no thave such weapons, however are TOLD and forced to doing actions they might not otherwise and cant do what the big boys tell them not too.
THIS IS AWFUL, EVIL and AMORAL. As others suggest and you will see evidence and here is an example of copyright.
Take the DND basic edition. WOTC dont sell it no more, in fact all you can get are used copies around yet. YOU can’t try and make new copies or use parts in anything because they hold the rights. its 33 years old and it would take even one sale away from there precious new crap then they will and have and others have done is make it so YOU CANT do shit with it. In Canada they are taking funding away form pharmacies because they buy generic drugs here, and ACTA will prevent this so the idea is to phase it out entirely. THE costs for your medicines are about to skyrocket in Canada and we may be looking at one issue that will begin a real patent/copyright war. WHEN we no longer can afford to look after our elderly thats going to lose them conservative/liberal types a lot of votes. IT WILL be the end of any reagonism in Canada.
investments
oh and these companies wouldn’t invest ….ok so they go away guess what starts to re happen that has been slowly disappearing?????
govts yes your country would do the research. THEY would employ people and this stuff would be for the betterment of mankind as it should. IT is in say canada’s interest with free health care to have treaments as cost affective as possible thus if investing in generics and drugs that are cheaper to make or ARENT PRICE GOUGED then by all means its the way to go. IF then some african company wants the drug we can sell the formula cheaply, then they can go go go go be healthier. the major return isnt on sale of the formula but on cost savings of the health care of a country
Re: investments
Until recently my government believed that beetroot and olive oil was the solution to the HIV pandemic – I would rather not rely on them for my health! (and at significant cost, I don’t).
Re: Re: investments
Well there is also the internet, microwave, regenerative medical research, robotic prosthetics, bio engineering that all came about by public grants.
But I don’t like the goverment either so lets see another alternative, where people colaborate on a commom knowledge pool and build business around it would that work?
Who would be interested? Medical professionals, researchers and individuals perhaps?
Where would the resources come from? From a pool of 6 billion people interested in their own health maybe?
Why do we need the companies any way?
To do the research? nope, that can be done and always was done independently of financial resources.
To do development? We have the means to create a giant network of clinics, research labs, universities, individuals all over the world this can’t be it.
So why exactly do we need companies to do it for us?
If they collect money from sales this can not be done by hospitals and clinics? or by specialized medical manufacturing factories that could also provide feedback into the common knowledge pool that would service a region?
I can’t remember the last time something new came out of private research, can anyone remember something really new?
But what I’m seeing is people jumping in other directions and making things happen, things that not only reduce cost, but are truly innovative, now why do we need companies again?
And why they need to profit for anything if they don’t do nothing.
J&J bought the patents for stents from others it did not develop those things and it fell behind the competition why?
Which is better? One big company that owns everything and don’t let others in that outsources production to cheaper labour or 1000 small little companies that cooperate globally with other little companies around the world for a common knowledge pool and make things locally cheaper?
Someday there could be a machine in each house that would store only basic compounds and people would pay Dr. for prescriptions so they can download the recipes and the machine does all the medicine.
Re: Re: investments
All initial research and development for Monsanto’s technology today came from a public funded research was it not?
It is not a fact that most research is done with public funding and only after it is transformed into a commercial venture?
It is not a fact that without public funding for basic research there would be no “commercial” viability?
Is IP laws the best way to incentivate research and development?
Would a big company invent a $25 dollar incubator that will cut their $20 000 hightech product line?
http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_chen_a_warm_embrace_that_saves_lives.html
There is no others ways to do it?
My opinion is that IP laws are an anachronism and have been superseded by recent advances not only in technology but understanding of the social dynamics involved.
Everyone can see that it will end bad if we stay the course.
Re: Re: investments
Can one company hire more people than a thousands of small ones?
Can one company out spend thousands of small ones?
Can one company suffer a crippling blow to sales and survive?
Can one company do more research than a thousand small ones?
Can one company evolve faster than a thousand small ones?
Big companies are a single point of failure that are not efficient, not resilient and consume large amounts of resources to stay in the game.
IP laws are like cell growth inhibitors.
Re: Re: Re: investments
Can one company hire more people than a thousands of small ones?
Nope, but 1000 small companies with no money for research don’t hire very many people either.
Can one company out spend thousands of small ones?
Happens all the time, see the previous point. “it takes money to make money”
Can one company suffer a crippling blow to sales and survive?
Can 1000 small companies survive having nothing to sell?
Can one company do more research than a thousand small ones?
if the 1000 companies have no money to research, the big company can always do more research.
Can one company evolve faster than a thousand small ones?
Again, without money to research, the small companies can’t evolve because they aren’t moving at all
Big companies are a single point of failure that are not efficient, not resilient and consume large amounts of resources to stay in the game.
This is where your logic fails. If your 1000 smaller companies are going to hire more people and do more research, they are going to consume larger sums of money and resources, and likely are going to duplicate each other’s efforts, thus being even more inefficient. Having many players is not the most efficient market.
IP laws are like cell growth inhibitors.
yeah, all the do is make it possible for companies in invest in new developments, to grow, and to bring new products to market. The only thing inhibited is companies who would seek to profit off of others by flooding the market with generic drugs, not paying for research, just paying to replicate.
You are making the same mistake Mike seems to make: You cannot look only at the marginal costs of selling the product, you have to look at the costs to get to that moment. In a market without protections, the generic makers would just sit there and pick off ever decent medication, and make it impossible for the people paying to create the new medicines to make them pay out.
Re: Re: Re:2 investments
Really?
How is that?
The money for research doesn’t come from many smaller donations(sales) of products to people who has no real money to spend in research?
Agreed look at the previous answer.
What nothing?
Better services and fewer complaints and cheaper resources are bad?
Besides if the thousand one have nothing to sell what makes you think the bigger ones will have anything to sell?
Are you saying that one big company can survive better then a thousand? How is the music industry faring?
Really, then to simulate chemical reactions in thousands of IT Centers is worst?
Have you ever researched anything in your life?
How much does it cost to trial thousands of compounds at one place and how much does it cost to one company to take one test do it 100 times and send the results to a common database?
Thousands of companies working at different things will not be able to do better then one big one?
Again, most research is done by individuals that then sell or are financed after they discover something so research happens without the aid of big companies all the time and that is unlikely to change see above how costly is to do computer simulation these days.
Last I heard the internet was created, distributed computing was a reality, clinical trials can be coordinated in a global scale, all small labs can coordinate and take one piece of the puzzle at a time and do it at a fraction of the cost and file reports on common databases, duplication of efforts was called redundancy and is a big part of quality assuarance and control besides the fact that it increases good behaviour on all the players, because no one wants to be called out in public.
No what it does is give the tools to a handful of companies to kill the competitors it does nothing to increase innovation if it did the U.S. would be king but it is not.
You assume that flooding the market with cheap generics is a bad thing when it is not, it maintain the public healthy and generate enough money to maintain local productions in place that generate local jobs with global cooperation and best practices auto regulated by true market freedom and to maintain their services they would invest in new researches and even if they did not other interested parties would, medical personell, researches, clinics, hospitals etc which would have more capital to do so with cheaper hardware and resources.
The human genome was done in distributed form with labs all around the world doing it was it not?
What makes you think it cannot be done with research for new medicines?
The marginal cost for fabrication of compounds can go down that is not a problem, research and development don’t depend on that to occur. We don’t really need a company to do it, we need researchers that are already paid for not only by public funding but by a lot of smaller private ones.
What we really don’t need is big companies patenting everything and spending more money buying and marketing things then innovating.
They stop innovation for the sole purpose of profiting for something.
Intel doesn’t have that luxury, if they don’t compete they would be crushed by asian and canadian competition despite the fact that there is a lot of patenting going on so patents don’t even protect them really it just protects big companies from smaller ones they enable the killing of baby companies that could be something.
Turn the field sterile and what happens is that other more competitive companies arise elsewhere whiping them out, that is what happened to the auto industry, the TV industry and other industries in the U.S. they lost everything.
Re: Re: Re:2 investments
So basically what you are saying is that a few big companies controlling everything can do better then thousands of companies is that it?
Kids can do DNA sequencing today, digital microscopes are ubiquitous and can record video in realtime.
Just tell people how to do it in their homes and you will see a lot of videos on youtube demonstrating advanced research in chemical reactions LoL
Want to see real proof that it is possible to predict the result of clinical trials without money?
Jamie Heywood: The big idea my brother inspired
That right there, is research in progress done it without any big company help, enabling people to discover and validate things before any official research and being confirmed by official research after.
Regenerative funding is coming from the government
I would like to see if a law was stated that no company could use public funded research to patent anything what it would happen, since only companies with money do research right?
Re: Re: investments
Aids is curable. You simply have to modify the DNA of ones bone marrow to produce Aids resistant antibodies. We already have the technology and have been genetically engineering bone marrow for a long time now and it’s really not expensive at all to implement.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/gene-editing-co/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7726118.stm
Oh, and Good news. It’s NOW BEING TESTED!!!
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/04/0132249
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/hivtreatment/
Re: Re: Re: investments
It’s weird because that article was from feb of 09 and I can’t find any updates as to the result of those tests. I guess it’s probably still to early to know the results, since these tests are more long term tests? Also, I don’t think those tests involve bone marrow DNA modifications, as they probably should 🙁 being that that would make a whole lot more sense .
Research:
The search for new compounds from what I understand is done in a brute force way, simulating chemical reactions and then going to trial to find out if those compounds really work.
Models for those chemical reactions is funded by governments everywhere I don’t remember once any company releasing any in house chemical models to anyone.
Funding from big companies happens after someone discover something and not before, so how is that people discover things without any funding?
Then come the trials that are done in clinics that sign up for it and that information is kept away from others so there is less transparency on that system it is difficult to confirm findings without data which doesn’t make it more safe but less, there is less eyeballs on the thing which leaves the door open for abuse.
Why do we need a big company to do computer chemical simulations for us?
Why do we need a big company to conduct clinical trials for us?
And why the f#$% do we need a handful of companies to manufacture all of our medicine?
Why do we permit such an environment that increases the cost, increase inefficiencies in service and quality and discourage cooperation while promoting bad practices? How did we end up like this?
Who Dat
Ultra low cost medical expenses.
Thulasiraj Ravilla: How low-cost eye care can be world-class
India is developing ultra low cost solutions to medical problems that rival industrialized countries practices and could lead them(industrialized countries) to loose more money in the long run.
The guy in the presentation talk about being efficient as McDonald’s and he is right, 10 years ago listening to the CEO from Yamaha addressing the workforce via teleconferencing he said that Yamaha should focus to be efficient like 7 Eleven and other convenience stores.
Well when you apply those simple rules to complex problems what it comes out are really astonishing solutions.
In the case of India the numbers came out like $13 million dollars to treat more then 1 billion people and in the U.K. the cost was 1.6 Billion dollars to treat 50 million people with only 40% of the population treated in India actually paying anything.
What now, people will call the good indian doctor a liar?
The 20/80 rule applies, you don’t need everyone to be on-board you just need part of it to be successful.
Ultra low cost medicine and medical service is even possible in the U.S. even though it is harder because of all the red tape. Dr. Hunter Campbell “Patch” Adams already proved that.
India is showing the world that it can be done on the cheap using an untrained workforce that divide the work between them and guide people through the motions and still achieve high quality service.
How difficult is to create a clean room?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cleanroom-Cabin.JPG
As simple as connecting a filter to a plastic box, so unless particles and organism have developed some kind of hyper nano propulsion system you would have a clean environment anywhere even inside the sewer system.
How much does it cost to buy an aquarium and transform it into a laboratory for testing chemicals?
Not much.
Where is the absurd costs coming from?
More why is that companies seem to stall development until they can squeeze every last drop out of something and waste billions to stop others from doing something new?
Re: Ultra low cost medical expenses.
We can learn a lot from a country where most of the people live in abject poverty, and that groups of citizens are treated as second and third class.
India is showing the world that it can be done on the cheap using an untrained workforce
I somehow don’t look forward to getting medical care from cheap, untrained workers.
FAIL!
Ronald J Riley Search...
Googled this guy for info on his cred. I think this link was like the third listing… Wow…
http://ronaldjriley.blogspot.com/
Re: Ronald J Riley Search...
Yep, the work of an invention promoter who used it to try and extort me into removing material from http://www.InventorEd.org/caution/. I told them hell no.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_newrevolution/all/1
The tools of factory production, from electronics assembly to 3-D printing, are now available to individuals, in batches as small as a single unit. Anybody with an idea and a little expertise can set assembly lines in China into motion with nothing more than some keystrokes on their laptop. A few days later, a prototype will be at their door, and once it all checks out, they can push a few more buttons and be in full production, making hundreds, thousands, or more.
They can become a virtual micro-factory, able to design and sell goods without any infrastructure or even inventory; products can be assembled and drop-shipped by contractors who serve hundreds of such customers simultaneously.
Today, micro-factories make everything from cars to bike components to bespoke furniture in any design you can imagine. The collective potential of a million garage tinkerers is about to be unleashed on the global markets, as ideas go straight into production, no financing or tooling required. “Three guys with laptops” used to describe a Web startup. Now it describes a hardware company, too.
Figure it out
“Patent defenders often claim that patents are necessary because top venture capitalists would never invest without patents.”
Let me put it this way, would you invest all your savings and years of your life to build a house you could not own? That is precisely what invetors would be doing with their inventions without patent protection. Figure it out. Gawd!
Re: Figure it out
Let me put it this way, would you invest all your savings and years of your life to build a house you could not own? That is precisely what invetors would be doing with their inventions without patent protection. Figure it out. Gawd!
Odd. I’m not sure why you make these claims when I have responded to them in the past — though, oddly, you never seem to back up your points with any actual evidence.
Unfortunately for you, there is tremendous evidence that shows your wrong. A recent study which I’ll be writing about shortly actually showed how most inventions take place due to a company needing the solution themselves — thus, not for the sake of selling it directly to profit, though that often comes later.
Separately, there is a basic profit motive for inventing: to sell a useful product.
You seem to be suggesting that the only product is the invention, but that’s incorrect. And, again, there is significant proof that you are wrong, found in various studies of societies without patents or with much weaker patent laws, and comparing them to similar places or times, and there is no evidence that patents increase the incentive to innovate. In fact, there is some evidence that more inventing/innovation gets done without patents, because then you have to *keep* innovating to stay ahead of any copycats.
And the fact is that you do own anything you create — but that doesn’t mean you should be able to stop the guy down the street from building his own house. Yet that’s what patents do.
Why do I figure you will not respond to this? You don’t deal well with people who have the facts at their hands, do you, Steve-o?
Who funded the study?
“A recent study which I’ll be writing about shortly actually showed how most inventions take place due to a company needing the solution themselves — thus, not for the sake of selling it directly to profit, though that often comes later.”
Mike, you sure swallow big corporate propaganda hook, line and sinker. Even if this was true, most of these company inventions are minor incremental ones. Breakthrough market altering, disruptive advances come from independent and academic inventors most of the time.
You say “there is tremendous evidence that shows your wrong” to which I say the idea is right but you have applied it wrong, YOU are the one who ignores TREMENDOUS evidence that the patent system is beneficial.
Also, you keep whining about people distrusting your motives. If you were an inventor (and contrary to your previous claims you are no) who spent years, sometimes decades in perfecting an invention only to have some quick buck marketing weasel come along and steal it or try to steal it you would have a very different perspective.
As I see it you are feeding to one degree or another at the trough of some of the worst tech and financial dis-service companies who just happen to be associated with stealing from inventors. That and the fact that you do promote their agenda of allowing theft of inventions gives everyone a very good reason to question your motives.
On the issue of your upbringing I am the first to admit that regardless of a patents best efforts some children just do not turn out the way we would like. Conversely, some children grow up and closely follow the example set by their parents, good or bad. We really don’t have any way of knowing what the situation is with you. But we do know from your actions that you are pushing an agenda counter to what current law and policy says is right and it is reasonable to wonder why.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Society benefits most from dueling inventors who leapfrog each other. Large companies generally are content to continue to rake in money from what they already have.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Lets get one thing straight
Lets get one thing straight. As a man much wiser than me once said, long ago:
NECESSITY is the mother of Invention.
PATENTS do not “create” inventions. They are not the REASON for inventions. A NEED is.
Inventors Create Inventions
“PATENTS do not “create” inventions. They are not the REASON for inventions. A NEED is.”
Patents are a vehicle to get an inventor to teach their invention.
Having a need is not worth anything but I did have a corporate patent pirating adversary who argued that the solution I invented to their problem was in part theirs because they had the problem. They lost the fight.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President – http://www.PIAUSA.org – RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director – http://www.InventorEd.org – RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow – http://www.PatentPolicy.org
President – Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 – 9 am to 8 pm EST.
Patents are necessary
From the biological point of view, it is more important patent which become necessary for top venture capitalists. It will be verified by biotechnology research of the technological analysis.