Reader Says — Patents Stop Innovation
This is a comment left by a reader in response to Propecia being under patent protection…
And that is exactly why we need to see the end of Patent laws as we know them today, companies are given way too much time to bleed us. Its evil. Especially when medication has been Government funded or approved.
The real issue is that patents stop other companies from innovating. In fact while I’m thinking about, we should all be lobbying against the company that tried to sue Histogen. Because that company only cares about your money not your hair. There is nothing more criminal then these companies slowing down the discovery process – its anti human and we want our hair back
Maybe you are right, but we live in a capitalist society. I’m not going to make excuses for it. These are for-profit companies and they spend millions (if not billions) of dollars on research and tests to develop new products and new drugs. Some drugs fail, some succeed. When one succeeds, it makes up for all the R&D and failures that still had to be paid for.
Do you think they should just give that away for essentially nothing? Patents form the backbone of what built our country into an industrial giant. In time though, the patents on these drugs will expire and generic versions will be legally available in the US… so there’s no stranglehold forever.
We all have the right to our own opinions, but hair loss is seen as a cosmetic issue. I have a hard time believing that the government would fund hair loss issues when its hard enough to have HIV or diabetes or heart medicines funded. But hey, maybe you can lobby the government and try!
Yes agreed Dr.
And in turn the argument should be made that patents actually promote advances in whatever item/idea is patented. This makes others want ways to tap into the market that is making money in different and better ways.
I want a permanent cure as much as they next guy/girl, but no patents would not make that happen faster
Patents speed innovation, whether the patent or copyright is for the ingerdiets to Cola-Cola, an iPhone app, musical or a product that a biopharmaceutical company expects to invest millions of dollars in developing over the usual 8 -10 year process. Without patent protection, one can “steal” any idea once the information becomes public leaving the inventor at a loss. Doing away with patent (or copyright) protection – would essentially stifle both venture capatalists who wish to invest in companies and those who wish to develop and commercialize their inventions. Governments reimburse for medications (via Medicare and other memans); however, governments aren’t in the process of developing medications for obvious conflict of interest if not economic reasons: it is government agencies that review and approve medications.
i don’t think you can make a sweeping statement like that
if you look at computer software for example the biggest innovations have been around the open source and GPL area where software is freely distributed and altered. this allows for innovations to be quickly implemented and therefore usually become an industry standard (such as HTML on this webpage is an open standard)
however other areas need proprietary such as computer hardware where it costs millions in investment to produce the equipment necessary to produce the goods, computer components could not exist nor be as sophisticated without large investment in expensive machinery.
computing exists on both sides of the coin, i am sure other industries do too
applying this to medicine innovation costs millions in R+D and requires much clinical trial and error before the companies make a penny.
I don’t agree. Patents are wrong (at least as they are presently). They are not controlled in a fair way. I’m not saying that its wrong to make money. Heck I run a business selling software – its how I make a living.
Here is just one example of where Patents are actually evil by nature – BP and other Petrol companies go out there and buy other peoples ideas and then shut them down because they want to sell more petrol. They do this with Patents. That in turn effects the planet as a whole, its capitalism at its worst. We might be living in a greener planet if not for archaic laws that allow these sorts of things to happen. Its nothing to do with making money. To be honest I’m a bit of a capitilist myself..
All of our software is Open Source (google that one). We run by a different set of ethics but our business model still works and everything still keeps ticking over. I would love to see the Open Source model in other areas of life outside of just software. The world would be a better place.
I don’t want to lobby your government but I will speak out about what I find fundamentally wrong with the world we live in. Bill, mate I see you do that all the time. Heck if the government funded a drug like an HIV vacine (which I have a friend working on right now in DC), if the government funded that, then it would be wrong for that company to put that drug into market at a price that only the rich could afford. Even though I’m a capitalist I don’t think making money trumps everything.
If I can take a punch at a company that is trying to hinder a company from solving hair loss on your blog then god damnit I’m going to give it a shot. And by the way its crazy to say USA was formed on patents. It was more formed by corput laws.
Try agreeing patents are wrong if you were a backyard inventor who comes up with a great idea, trys to sell it to large firms then those firms steal said idea.