[Gllug] Patents *again*

[Aaron Trevena]

On 18/01/06, Paul Rayner <paul at ylemsolutions.com> wrote:
>
> On 18 Jan 2006, at 22:33, Peter Childs wrote:
>
> > Now I read that Patents Kill. Not nessessary software patents but
> > Medical ones make developing drugs very expensive and hence slow down
> > research and hence are killing thousands every day.
>
> So if the medical patents weren't granted, who would spend the money
> required for the development of new drugs? I agree that the system
> isn't perfect, but like capitalism in general, nobody has come up with
> a realistic, better alternative. Pharmaceuticals wouldn't spend the
> sums they do on drug development if the patent system wasn't there to
> protect their investment. I think that if you left all medical research
> to governments, scrapping medical patents, the rate of development
> would be much slower.

Pharmacutical patents are justified, but the licensig prices are
frequently well beyond what is required to recoup the investment,
further most medical research and patents are for diseases and
problems specific to an affluent market place - cancer is a huge money
spinner not just because of the wealthy market but because a huge
ammount of research is funded by charities.

So, as you say pharmacutical patents are justified but need a hell of
a lot of work to really justify themselves.

Thats the difference between pharmacutical patents and software patents

The patenting and licensing system for pharmacutical research is
working to a point and can be improved significantly by providing
checks and balancing - some of this is even happening with compulsory
licensing.

The same cannot be said for software patents - they aren't working,
and changing the system will not make them work, they need to be
scrapped.

cheers,

A.
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