EFF: Supreme Court to decide standard for proving invalidity of a patent

Posted Nov 30, 2010 12:19 UTC (Tue) by Randakar (guest, #27808)

And with that last statement things go into dubious territory.

Yes, this stuff costs a lot to research. Yes, reproduction of the results is cheap. However, that completely ignores:

- Other ways of sponsoring fundamental research.

A few weeks ago an article popped up on research into some disease affecting older people’s brains — Alszheimers, I believe. (Not sure.) What basically happened in that particular case was that the fundamental research into this problem is prohibitively expensive, up to the point where the best course of action turns out to be several universities and companies combining forces to fund said research. Patents aren’t used because no single company or organisation has the means to go this path alone in the first place.

- The fact that said drugs may not be the best solution in the first place. Sure, patents make it possible to put 500 million into drug research, but as it turns out there are cases where the 500 million investment isn’t what society really needs — it needs the 5 million investment into a solution that might make the problem go away entirely.

(Certain diseases of the thyroid gland fall into this category.)

- The minor detail that such an assertion fundamental drug research will go away without patents is based on thin air to begin with. There will still be a need for these drugs, therefore someone will pony up the money for this research. The patients are still there. Their medical care costs governments a lot of money. Money they can save if they invest in research.

And even if it doesn’t cost governments directly it still means these people cannot work, cannot be productive, and thus cannot pay taxes.

I do not believe the patent system’s presumed benefit is worth the cost. Not in this case, nor in any other case.

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EFF: Supreme Court to decide standard for proving invalidity of a patent

Posted Nov 30, 2010 12:32 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭. #52523) [Link ]

So? Certainly patents are not the only solution. Universities also play a large part, so that’s why NIH is also necessary.

But neither of them can replace others. Academia can’t replace pharma/biotech industry, and industry will be at least uncomfortable without academia.

Sure, it’s sometimes better to spend $50000 in the right place instead of $5000000000 in the wrong place. But how do you find them?

So far patents work fairly OK, they really help to providt funding for new drugs. A small fact — there’s almost no patent trolls in pharma industry.