[VulcanRider]

Originally posted by philip: Is this a good or a bad thing looking at medical inventions? Just to make sure: patents give a temporal monopoly on an invention (!) if the inventor makes his invention public. The idea is that a company can gain back what they invested in research and licenses can be given to anybody who pays enough. As two major advantages there's that information gets public access, thus making more research possible where otherwise companies might keep the inner workings of their inventions secret. The other is that companies might put money into research now they can get their investments back. There are more disadvantages. -A lot depends on the attitude of the patent holder. For example prices of the licenses and the product/method itself.

VR- The price of the license is usually based on the money spent for the research. Whoever paid for the work wants to get their money back.

-There could be less research cause the material which has to be researched is patented. -Doctors don't search for a solution but it'll be researcher and company. Now a doctor diagnoses a disease and tries to find out a solution but then there will be a third party that isn't necesarrily out there to help the patient.

VR- I think doctors today either deal with research or treatment. I don't think any do both.

-Quality control can be really hard when companies outsource certain parts of tests to other countries. -There could be problems with continuing the production when a company stops or goes bankrupt.

VR- How are either of these blamed on patents? They're both true whether the invention is patented or given away for free.

-In a medical case people most of the time don't have a choice on if they want to go with a product. It's either do or die.

VR- And if nobody's willing to pay for the research, they'll have one choice -- die.

-Knowledge on rare or local diseases will be lost, unless non-profit organisations research it.

VR- Lost? Why? Information's not lost because when a patent is filed detailed documents about that invention are made public. The whole point is to be able to say "See this? It's mine." But since patents don't last forever, eventually that information becomes available for anybody to use.

-A commercial company has to make profit. This can be by making things expensive or by producing large quantities. Either way that will give problems in what is researched or on the price. I think I'm against patents on genes because of the monopolies. What's the use of a medicine if it's too expensive?

VR- it's more useful than if nobody pays for the research and it's never developed in the first place.

Right now there's a problem in the Netherlands (don't know in other countries) that patients don't get the best medicines because they're too expensive. In a monopoly the concentration of power is way too much on the side of the company. I don't think patents will give much of a boost to invention cause of the licence costs that make people think twice about researching something. I'd rather go for normal concurrention and take disadvatages for granted. Also companies are there to make profit, they don't care for the health of someone if they can't make much profit. Non-profit research organisations have to stay in any case. This also counters the argument that the money is spread more evenly. Though patients pay for what they get, I assume they still pay some of the money for non-profit organisations (via taxes). Also outsourcing doesn't seem like a very good idea to the privacy of people. It could also lead to problems with insurance as you might get insurance companies stopping high-risk people from getting insured. What do you think?

Sorry, but I get the impression you'd like companies to spend $$ on research and give away the fruit of that labor. The simple truth is that if you take away the chance to make a profit, you take away the major incentive to pay for research. That means there will be less research done, and scientific progress will take longer.