[jyhugikuhih]

Excellent article Zippy.

One thing I'd add, is that to restore scientific inquiry, thought, and innovation to its rightful place in our society, patent laws and intellectual property protections need to be rethought to allow broader adoption, experimentation, and combination.

Basic sciences like math and physics cannot be patented. The tendency in the biological and life sciences toward patents is a very grave sign for the future of these sectors.
Jeffrey A. Tucker reviews Against Intellectual Monopoly Alexandre, "a company CEO of a biotech firm" comments elsewhere:
The average cost of bringing a new drug to market is 800 million $, and is expected to reach 1.4 billion $ within 10 years. Without patents, the logic tells us that no one would put that king of money to get a new drug approved if they would not be guaranteed a monopoly over it for a period of time. But lets dig a little deeper. According to the FDA's own numbers, the number a "me-too" drugs comprise 80% of all approved drugs on the market. For those who don't know, a me-too drug is a drug that does the exact same thing as another, except that it's a little bit different, just enough so that it's not covered by the existing patents.

When a company develops a new drug, say viagra, it can generate profits of many billions of dollars. When other companies see these huge profits, they want a slice of the pie, so they invent nearly identical drugs that does the same thing, except a little differently and call it "cialis". But here is the catch, since that new drug is slightly different, it too must be approved independently to the FDA, costing another 800 million $. Without patents, the second company could simply copy the first drug and get a slice of the profits instantly, saving society 800 million $ in R&D costs.

When the FDA says that 80% of new drugs approved are "me-too" drugs, then what it really means is that there is a 640 millions dollar cost overrun for each new drug. The immediate effect of eliminating patent law in the pharmaceutical industry would be to reduce the cost of introducing a new drug to market down to 160 million $ from 800 million $.

As for the long term effect... well, need I mention the 50 most promising compounds that I as well as no other company are allowed to research into because the patent holders demand unreasonable royalties. These compounds simply go unstudied. Patent in the pharmaceutical sciences are probably accountable for a 10 year dip in life expectancy compared to what it could be if people had the freedom to research and market products according to their own reason and choice (as opposed to which patent the government approved or not). If one thinks about it honestly, it seems preposterous for government to prohibit certain chemical or physical configurations simply because the original innovator pays the government a protection fee.

If Obama's starry-eyed left-leaning boosters want him to socialize something, they should keep him away from the banks and the auto industry and health care, and instead urge him to socialize all scientific and inventive knowledge into the free public domain and turn the patent office into an empowering clearinghouse for knowledge instead of a protection racket for entrenched moneyed interests.

*****

Patent system 'stifling science', BBC News 24 September 2008