An opponent of our current patent law and system may make the argument that absent our intellectual property rights, innovations and discoveries would more closely exhibit the characteristics found in “pure public goods” such as national defense and education7. These examples are non-rival in consumption, there is enough to go around for everybody, and they are also non-excludable; no one is prevented from enjoying the good7. What these critics of our system fail to acknowledge is that an inventor could possibly bear the cost of making their discovery while everyone benefits on this free ride and prevents the original developer from ever recovering their initial investment of time and money. This flaw in the competitive system we would have absent IP law would potentially discourage some pioneers from their R&D. This would indicate that in some instances of innovation, the short-term monopoly provided by our patent law is a necessity to provide adequate incentive. The pharmaceutical industry is the poster child for this necessary protection provided by patents. In this sector, and to...
(7) Hall B. Patents and Patent Policy -. 2007. The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the Morse H. SETTLEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DISPUTES IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL AND MEDICAL DEVICE INDUSTRIES: ANTITRUST RULES. Allison JR, Lemley MA, Moore KA, Trunkey RD. Valuable patents. Geol.
Much like a young child growing up, they are prone to make mistakes. The same can be said about the United States after gaining independence from Great Britain. In 1778 the law of the land was the Articles of Confederation, where a majority of governmental power went to the 13 individual states in order to avoid a large, overbearing government like the one we recently fought against. Although it was great in concept, the Article of Confederation was not what the United States needed. With each state governing on their own the states were not united. But with the adoption of the U.S Constitution, that all changed.
The U.S. Constitution was written with a great vision to create a strong nation. Unlike the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution is a very well organized and well thought out document that holds a strong bases for the future of America. It was September 17, 1787 that the Constitution was created, just a few years after we broke away from England’s control. In 1777, America’s government operated under the Articles of Confederation. This allowed states to operate independently like little countries. America’s government was weak because people were afraid of the government having too much power.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or USFDA) is a federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, dietary supplements, prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs (medications), vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, blood transfusions, medical devices, electromagnetic radiation emitting devices (ERED), cosmetics, animal foods & feed and veterinary products.
Lehman, Bruce. 2003. “The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Patent System”. International Intellectual Property Institute. Pages 1-14.
Gene patenting is a very controversial topic that have many scientists and researchers facing issues with their work. The patenting of genes raise many flags in the science world. Some examples of these cons of gene patenting are as follows. With all of this new technology coming out every day the government has a hard time regulated the work of these companies. The most controversial topic in gene patenting is that you can’t patent something found in nature. The final dispute about gene patenting is that those who patent the genes first have a monopoly on this gene, halting others from working with it. Gene patents should not be help by companies due to, halts in research, lack of monitoration, and the fact that you can’t patent something
Firearm owners can be criticized due to constant misunderstandings for owning guns. Many Americans may see firearm owners as someone who can hurt and kill people. As a firearm seen as an object that may cause harm to an individual, people feel terrorized when living next to an owner of of a gun. Citizens of the United States believe the cause of many violent deaths throughout the country are because of gun ownerships eligibility to all citizens and no guarantee of complete safe responsibility of the individual. People fear the lack of safety precautions and little knowledge of owning a gun will create an occurrence of accidents. People believe troops and law enforcement are the only ones to be in charge of a gun because they
1. There are several advantages to proprietary products over open source products: better quality control issues in creating products; a firmer control over the licensing, either the technology the product is based on or what material (music in this case) can be used with the proprietary device; the potential to build brand loyalty (for example Sony memory cards only work in their products, if you’ve already bought these cards you could be more likely to purchase additional Sony products in the future); pricing – companies could possibly charge a premium price for their proprietary products as there could be few to no competitors in a specific market space; vertical markets (if Sony is providing the device, memory card and music the majority of revenues are staying in-house); and proprietary products could potentially create barriers to entry.
Although monopolies appear damaging at times, there are arguments that they are an advantage to society. Monopolies in the pharmaceutical industry drive companies to pursue research and development (R&D) efforts to gain new patents. According to a 1992 study, among the 24 US. Industry groups, pharmaceuticals dedicated 16.6% of their amounts to basic research, while all other industries averaged at 5.3% (Sherer 1307). This fact validates the incentive pharmaceutical companies have to get a patent and acquire more power. Pfizer encourages R&D because of the incentives and a want to obtain patents to receive more profit. Pfizer has to promote itself to be successful, creating a good brand image that consumers will trust. If the company can advertise successfully, more consumers will purc...
The pharmaceutical and biotech industries must be free to develop and research life saving medicines and other advancements that will benefit society. If this cannot be done, progress would never be made. People would still be contracting polio a...
Absolute Monopoly - this is what it means! The people who have come up with the idea of protecting the innovation and so called rewards to the innovators never thought that what it may mean to the corporations and how it will kill the innovation in the software industry. As Stallman said “Software patents are a danger that affects all programmers and all computer users. I found out about them of course in working on Free Software because they are a danger to my project as well as to every other software project in the world.[ii]” I truly agree with Stallman’s view of the Patent. Now a day the number of patents is growing exponentially and due to open trade (software specially) internationally the patent law of one country is influencing the law in the other. Country like India where the software industry is growing at a tremendous pace and the US companies generate most of the business, people in India may advocate a law similar to US. Right now the state of the law is much stricter th...
The main idea behind patents is to promote technological innovations. For there to be technological innovation for society as a whole, two things must happen. First, people must be able to study other people's innovations in order to further technology in society, because they can use the ideas of others to make even greater innovations. Second, people must have incentive to innovate. The most obvious solution to the first idea would be to make all innovations public, so that as soon as someone invents something, others are free to build off of it to further technology.
The system that is in motion at present between the big pharmaceutical companies, the generics industry and the WHO seems to be working efficiently. Some may complain that the pharmaceutical companies are creating too big a monopoly and are greedy, but without them discovery of new medicines wouldn’t happen. Patents have thus far ensured that inventors and researchers reap economic rewards for their work, and new treatments and new medicines are made available on a regular basis. Essentially, without patents there would be no innovation and discovery of new medicines. And without that, we would be no better off than we are now.
Jiang, FeiFei. "The Problem with Patents." 19 December 2008. Havard International Review. 4 May 2014.