Intellectual Property = Monopoly = Inefficiency

[Erik Mesoy]

Brighteye's suggestion of compulsory licensing is an interesting one that I will have to consider.

 

[Brighteye]

No.

If we do nothing the generics will step in and provide the service at a fraction of the price. If the pukka drug can be supplied, by the same company, at one 400th of the price (and still turn an imediate profit) then a generic could do it at (at worst) a similar price. The licencee could do so delivering the same assurance of quality, turning a profit.

Not only are we talking about restricting independents ability to turn a profit and the companies own ability to turn a profit but the companies spend to lobby and nationstates spend to inforce.

This isnt an issue of of asking for charity from anyone, this is asking people to make money while they save lives doing what it is that they do.

The drug can be made, and sold at a tiny fraction of the cost of making it, because that doesn't take into account the endless trials required to test it, or covering the cost of the many drugs that were failures.
Of course some other company can come along once all the hard work is done and just manufacture a chemical. My family, with a small investment in equipment, with our combined knowledge could make most drugs at home. I even made aspirin at school.
But we weren't the ones who tried lots of other drugs and spent time and money on ones that were useless. If companies are forbidden from recouping those costs, they won't risk it.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

I have another suggestion: Independent invention, like prior art, should invalidate patents.

 

[Verbose]

I think this is a bloody interesting discussion. Not just for the possible solutions proposed, but because at the bottom of it is a set of problems with more to do with 19th c. social revolutionary movements than what's immediately perceptible.

This kind of "bio-politics" does have the capacity to upset the workings of what's been dubbed "The New Middle Age" (in the sense that the societal basic model is not questioned; in the ME it was feudal, today it's liberal market capitalism).
There is room for revolutionary upsets over these things, unless they are dealt with. Health, of both individuals and nations, is such a vital thing, it does in fact bring into question certain basic precepts of the present social order. It's not a foregone conclusion that property rights and profit maximisation are entirely preferable and "natural".

Nice to see that the "New Middle Age" of the 21th c. still has sufficiently in common with the 19th c. "Age of Revolution" to make things interesting, and scenarios for the future open-ended.

 

[El_Machinae]

Ram,

Amazingly you may agree here with me. What would you think of a patent system for pharmacuticals that would auction off any newly patented drug that is effective (per whatever reg organization we agree). However, the catch is that every X% of the time, the government would buy the patent at the second highest bid price (this is a second price double blind auction which is the best kind of auction to maximize revenue for the auctioneer) and release it as a generic for all?

Why not just make the gov't win the bidding process, if the gov't figures it's worth making a generic? A proper drug is worth hundreds of billions of dollars to an economy, and so the gov't will purchase it if it figures it's worth it.

If the drug is not worth it, then it can only go to those who bother affording it.

 

[El_Machinae]

Brighteye's suggestion of compulsory licensing is an interesting one that I will have to consider.

Most of my knowledge about IP p ) comes from the medical field.

I can think of one example of a scheme where a compulsory licensing would really help. There's a company out there that discovered a really good drug for condition X. They've patented it, of course. They also patented Process Y, by which you test for the condition (specifically).

Most diseases are discerned by looking at the symptoms, narrowing down your field, and then doing specific tests. This company, however, has forbidden anyone from using Process Y. If you have the symptoms, you don't know if you have the condition or not, but you'll take the drug because it might help.

It's been awhile since I looked at the case, but last I heard there was still some doubts about the rate at which the condition was in the population, because no one was testing for it. Clearly, though, the company is preventing people from testing for the condition (which I think it could charge for!) because they'd rather have their speculative sales of their drug.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

I always thought that the free market and property rights existed because they serve soceity by encouraging innovation and economic growth. It never occured to me that they existed just because the free market is always necessarily perfect and unchallengeable, in and of itself. What a strange concept. Silly me, thinking that a public necessity might reasonably take precedence over the market.

Enough sarcasm, seriously, how can you let people die just to avoid the slightest deviation from capitalist scripture? I think the free market is great, but at the end of the day it's just a means unto an end that we can and should unceremoniously dump when and where it suits us. Are we to say 'the free market solves everything, and even if it doesn't we'll stick to it anyway, just because'?

What's the meaning of life, at least as far as governments are concerned? Happiness? Economic growth? Or stringent adherence to a fundamentalist free market outlook? I know which one I'd prefer.

I'm sorry, but if you want to justify something, you have to move beyond the institutional justifications, and tell us why, in the grand scheme of things, it benefits us.

 

[Brighteye]

The free market benefits us because it is the closest approximation to each person getting what he deserves that we have.
It is based on property, so if we wish to remove property rights, we have to accept that we are not changing the free market, but removing its foundation.
If we wish to destroy the principles on which the free market is based, with what shall we replace them?

I'm not a utilitarian. That is a deeply flawed doctrine, as even Mill, who wrote the utilitarian bible, admits. If we have a principle, I acknowledge no greater principle that says 'we can ignore our principles of law and justice if we think more people will benefit by doing so'.
Currently our society is based on the idea that we can own property, and that this ownership conveys certain rights of use and freedom from interference with that property. Deciding to break these rules just because some people would have happier lives is not acceptable.

It is exactly the same as deciding that rich people are no longer allowed to be rich, because their money could make poor people happier. Which is communism.

Why should everything benefit most people the most? Why is it my duty, or a company's duty, to forgo individual profit for someone else's profit, even if the overall profit achieved thereby is greater?

 

[Brighteye]

Hard case makes bad law. Yes, there are people who might be saved by getting expesnive drugs.
But if we make stealing drugs legal, we may as well legalise the theft of those lives we saved. Yes, the drug companies are entitled to steal those lives for further medical experimentation...
no, we have a principle, and we stick to it entirely, or not at all. I don't see why people will admit that something is right but then happily discard it when they're suffering. Suffering is not the same as wrong, and happiness is not the same as right.
Of course, wronging someone is likely to make them suffer, but we can't deduce that something that is preventing the cessation of suffering is wrong. That's making an assumption that I challenge.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Let's see, what did I say at the start of this thread?

Oh yes, I said that the term "intellectual property" was flawed because it was poorly defined, and more importantly, prejudges people into thinking about intangibles, such as ideas, in a manner more suited to physical objects.

And people called me a pedant.

The free market benefits us because it is the closest approximation to each person getting what he deserves that we have.
It is based on property, so if we wish to remove property rights, we have to accept that we are not changing the free market, but removing its foundation.
If we wish to destroy the principles on which the free market is based, with what shall we replace them?

I'm not a utilitarian. That is a deeply flawed doctrine, as even Mill, who wrote the utilitarian bible, admits. If we have a principle, I acknowledge no greater principle that says 'we can ignore our principles of law and justice if we think more people will benefit by doing so'.

Currently our society is based on the idea that we can own property, and that this ownership conveys certain rights of use and freedom from interference with that property. Deciding to break these rules just because some people would have happier lives is not acceptable.

Your entire argument is a non sequitur for reasons which I have already covered.

 

[Brighteye]

But patents are a form of intellectual property, and the people wishing to remove patents are claiming that they are a limitation on the market.

I see no problem with using the broader, less well-defined term when the point I'm making is that any breach of a wider principle is still a breach of a principle.

If you want to suggest a way in which we can have a market for ideas (as the OP implies we want, by claiming that patents are a limitation of this market) without having a way of owning ideas, let's hear it.
But if people don't own something, they can't sell it or rent it.

 

[GinandTonic]

Situation a) patent holder makes less money and people die, but everyone pays the same for drug x.

Situation b) patent holder makes a little more money and people do not die, but some people pay more for drug x than others.

You deem situation a to be preferable to situation b?

 

[Brighteye]

Yes I do, and I also object to the supposition that we can give cheaper drugs to the dying people entirely independently of the rest of the market. I think it likely that the patent holder, if it supplies cheap drugs, will suffer.
I don't see why someone who's dying should be given preferential treatment just because they're dying.
I'm suffering too: I feel unhappy. Money will cure my unhappiness. So are you going to suggest that we just take the profits directly from the rich and give them to me?
If you start treating people differently depending on their situation in an attempt to make everyone end up the same then people will start not to bother working for themselves. Where's the point in working to stand out if all that work is taken from you in order to help everyone else?
We should all start at the same point, not finish there. If you want cheap drugs for dying people, they need to be cheap for everyone. I can see the argument for this, but the solution is not simply to force companies that are operating perfectly legally to lose money, but to nationalise the sector or else pay the companies the full asking price on behalf of everyone, not just the poor.

 

[GinandTonic]

No one is talking about giving drugs away.

There is no issue of this costing anyone anything.

The situation I outlined is one where everyone ends up ahead or even.

When I was discussing this with the person who works for the drugs multinational and they said the main barrier to this was that people wig-out at having to pay more than some guy in the third world, I really didnt believe that anyone could be that self-centred.

Where's the point in working to stand out if all that work is taken from you in order to help everyone else?

You do realise that nothing has been taken from you. You get the same drug, at the same price. The drugs companies have marginally higher profits, and therefore marginally higher incentives and resorces for newer drugs. All you lose is the knowledge that if you hade been african you would have died. All you lose is a sense of being one of the favored few.

You are saying you would let people die, just so you could feel special?

 

[Erik Mesoy]

But patents are a form of intellectual property, and the people wishing to remove patents are claiming that they are a limitation on the market.

But "intellectual property" is not a meaningful term; and it's certainly not a species term of property. So your rant about 'removing the foundation' of the free market is completely off base. Go instead and argue about limitations on the market if that's the case you wish to make.

 

[Brighteye]

OED:
d. intellectual property (Law), a general name for property (such as patents, trademarks, and copyright material) which is the product of invention or creativity, and which does not exist in a tangible, physical form.

It seems to have a rather useful meaning to me. What exactly is wrong with it?

 

[Brighteye]

No one is talking about giving drugs away.

There is no issue of this costing anyone anything.

The situation I outlined is one where everyone ends up ahead or even.

I know. And I suggested that it wasn't realistic.

When I was discussing this with the person who works for the drugs multinational and they said the main barrier to this was that people wig-out at having to pay more than some guy in the third world, I really didnt believe that anyone could be that self-centred.

It would certainly make me angry. If I want to help people who are less well-off, I will. I don't see why I should be forced into it when I'm ill.

You are saying you would let people die, just so you could feel special?

Now that's a ridiculous statement. Did I say that I felt special? Did I even say that I could afford drugs? I currently don't have to buy very expensive ones, but I couldn't if it were necessary.
Why do some people have a problem when I stand up for principles over wishy-washy ideas of helping others?
I've made it perfectly clear in my posts that I'm not a utilitarian, that I don't believe in an intrinsic duty to help others, that I don't like a communist society and that I see no reason (therefore) for breaking foundational principles of our society about equal treatment and property rights.
It frustrates me when people get angry and resort to insults just because they can't (or won't) understand the point I'm making. I value principles over everything, even sum benefit. It doesn't matter if that sum benefit includes people's lives.

In a different thread I'd be one of the people saying you can't kill one person to save two. It's exactly the same principle, applied in a different situation. Sum benefit does not change my principles.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

OED:
d. intellectual property (Law), a general name for property (such as patents, trademarks, and copyright material) which is the product of invention or creativity, and which does not exist in a tangible, physical form.

It seems to have a rather useful meaning to me. What exactly is wrong with it?

a) It's an umbrella term covering disparate areas of law that are treated differently.
b) It's a prejudicing term that begs the question of how such things should be treated.
c) It is ill-defined with regards to e.g. including or not including business methods, representations of ideas, trade secrets.

It's useful for propaganda, though.

Now put it down and say "patents", or for every argument you make that depends on property (Repeat after me: Intellectual property is not a species term of property), I may make one that depends on trademarks. Or business methods. For example, if I see that someone else is becoming rich by investing X into stocks and Y into houses and Z into farmland, surely I should be allowed to invest that way too, and he shouldn't be allowed to prevent me from investing that way.

 

[Brighteye]

The question of whether business methods should qualify as intellectual property, and which business methods, is a different one from the term itself. I'd happily see my argument applied to all intellectual property.
I'm less happy about the example you give qualifying as intellectual property in the first place.

 

[Mise]

But my dear, you have been conned!

You must be under the assumption that private, corporate industry is the main innovator and inventor. If you care to look into it, then you will soon find that you are very much mistaken. The places where invention and innovation truly takes place are in government funded laboratories (see mapping of the human genome for example) and in universities (where an 'open architecture' approach to knowledge us adopted).

Fair point.

There's two things that concern me about being dependent on Universities and gov't funded labs. First, it's that we end up paying for it anyway, and typically the free market develops things more cost-effectively (since it has a much bigger incentive to do so). Second, would you agree that there's a place for both, and they are complementary? I.e. patents don't take anything away from universities, and there's no reason why we can't increase funding to unis/labs publicly, whilst keeping the current patent system in tandem.

What the corporations do provide is the delivery to market of these innovations (and the reaping of profit from a publicly funded invention) - which is what gives the impression that they are innovating.

Well there's no point in inventing something brilliant if there's no route to market.

Do you really believe this? Where do you get these ideas from?

I would like you to go and have a look at the history of Intellectual Property Rights in two countries; The Netherlands and Switzerland. When you do so you will find that the first didn't have IP rights in place until 1907 and the second didn't have any until 1912. Were these countries devoid of innovation and invention until they enshrined IP rights?

Okay, then I'd like you to go have a look at IP Rights in NL and CH vs UK, US, DE, and JP. Hell, even France. Which group made more stuff?

No-one's saying that inventions won't happen AT ALL. But there WILL be a reduction in the number, variety, and possibly even quality of inventions. I think denying that would be naive, and for me it's the overriding concern. Do you deny even the possibility of that happening?

Errr did you consider that the amount of money people have is determining what drugs they buy, or indeed whether they can buy any at all? No one is making their decisions for them, well, other than the level of their wealth.

Yeah, of course it is, but the point I was making is that a drug that costs £100 a pill is better than no drug at all.

Are you sure that heavily funded corporate interests, with swarms of highly trained and highly paid lawyers and lobbyists, aren't stalling the establishment of a more efficient and justice IP regime?

I'm sure they are, but that doesn't mean I'm not right.

Mankind somehow managed to develop civilization until the 19th century without patents... so much for the idealized homo economicus inventors.

Okay, compare inventions/advancements over the past 200 years with inventions/advancements over the previous 2,000.

And inventions WERE protected before the C19, because they were harder to mimic in pre-industrial society...