I've had this conversation before (not with you, but re: this argument) and I think you're right, it's hard to make certain areas of biotech work without having

I've had this conversation before (not with you, but re: this argument) and I think you're right, it's hard to make certain areas of biotech work without having the ability to recoup costs (today handled with a temporary monopoly on the product, keeping gross margins very high). One answer is "if you abolish patents a lot of science research will have to come from privately or publicly funded research" but this is pretty extreme and would be a tectonic shift in the biotech industry. I'm not advocating an extreme solution like abolishing patents. But I think the pendulum needs to shift very hard in the other direction re: patents in general. Like, how about not having one court in Texas decide it all? Or "you have to sell the product to keep the patent and you can't just pretend to sell it". Or you can't patent software unless there's a really really good reason (like recouping huge development losses)