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I may be wrong, but I thought mRNA vaccine was only developed after key patents for it have expired. Whether patents help or hinder innovation seems to depend

by js8 5y ago

I may be wrong, but I thought mRNA vaccine was only developed after key patents for it have expired. Whether patents help or hinder innovation seems to depend on how general the patented idea is. If it's really broadly applicable, they hinder it IMHO. I also don't see the patents benefiting researchers anymore, rather than some corporate middlemen.

unityByFreedom 5y ago
That patents expire is not a bug, it's a feature. Patents are an exchange for temporary protection. > I also don't see the patents benefiting researchers anymore, rather than some corporate middlemen. The researcher can't make money without some form of protection. You could spend 20 years building something and have it stolen by a huge company with no means to recoup your costs. Removing patents would immediately benefit the biggest players, entrenching existing monopolies.
- js8 5y ago
  > You could spend 20 years building something and have it stolen by a huge company with no means to recoup your costs. Removing patents would immediately benefit the biggest players, entrenching existing monopolies. But why is the big company stealing it? Currently, it makes sense to steal it because the patent protections make it seem as if the idea itself is valuable (and can be a private property not commons). But in the world without the patents, what is valuable is the physical implementation, or rather, the coupling of both. It has been pointed out that you have many cases in free market economy with a similar problem. iPhone, for example, has very little innovation in it, it's just an idea executed well, based on past things like Palm Pilot for example. It seems to me, to have fair patents, you need to assume that value of everything can be broken to additive pieces - value of this idea, that idea, and then the value of the materials and energy from which it is built. But this is really hard, because things have value that also comes from combining these things. (In general, this is a problem with free market with respect to labor too, because you cannot really meaningfully determine what contribution of different types of labor is more valuable for the product to arise, but at the same time, the people need to be remunerated for the labor somehow.) On the other hand, in the world without patents, we assume that value of everything can be broken to little pieces (not so valuable by themselves) that are added by individuals in small amounts. So if all innovation is in the commons, no need to toil for 20 years to invent something. You build a little piece, add it to the pile, and everybody benefits because at the end of the day, you take lot more from the pile than you put in.
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    > But why is the big company stealing it? Currently, it makes sense to steal it because the patent protections make it seem as if the idea itself is valuable It makes no sense to steal when the owner is likely to sue you for doing so, thus invalidating all of your work. It is also not a good business practice to steal. > in the world without the patents, what is valuable is the physical implementation, or rather, the coupling of both. You've discounted the value of research.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
Governments should probably just buy good patents and release them into the public domain. Not with eminent domain or anything like that, just offer to pay the market price for the patent. Then you solve this problem because the inventor gets their reward one way or the other but you don't have these really good inventions going ignored for twenty years because the market for the technology at the monopoly price is 2% of the size it is in the public domain. Preposterously, we have a system that does the opposite and encourages universities to file patents on publicly-funded research.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  > Governments should probably just buy good patents and release them into the public domain. Patents expire after 20 years. There is no need to buy them. You just invite more corruption if you tell the government to pick and choose which ones are "good".
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    20 years can be a long time. The corruption problem is the same one a with NIH grants and everything else, it's just doing it after the fact in exchange for the patent. You try to minimize the inefficiency as best you can, but even when it's not zero it can still be smaller than the inefficiency from waiting for the patent to expire.
    - unityByFreedom 5y ago
      A single patent can be bought for any amount, such as for life saving vaccines. I wouldn't like to see that price inflated by tax dollars, thus further reducing competition to where vaccine production becomes state-owned. Good thing the public will never go for this so I don't need to worry.
      - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
        > I wouldn't like to see that price inflated by tax dollars, thus further reducing competition to where vaccine production becomes state-owned. The entire point is that the patent goes into the public domain. The government pays money to cause it to not be patented anymore. > Good thing the public will never go for this so I don't need to worry. What does the public have anything to do with it? It's Congress that makes the laws. There are surely some companies with lobbyists who would like to make some tax dollars. Let a bit of corruption do something good for once.

by js8 5y ago

unityByFreedom 5y ago

That patents expire is not a bug, it's a feature. Patents are an exchange for temporary protection. > I also don't see the patents benefiting researchers anymore, rather than some corporate middlemen. The researcher can't make money without some form of protection. You could spend 20 years building something and have it stolen by a huge company with no means to recoup your costs. Removing patents would immediately benefit the biggest players, entrenching existing monopolies.

js8 5y ago
> You could spend 20 years building something and have it stolen by a huge company with no means to recoup your costs. Removing patents would immediately benefit the biggest players, entrenching existing monopolies. But why is the big company stealing it? Currently, it makes sense to steal it because the patent protections make it seem as if the idea itself is valuable (and can be a private property not commons). But in the world without the patents, what is valuable is the physical implementation, or rather, the coupling of both. It has been pointed out that you have many cases in free market economy with a similar problem. iPhone, for example, has very little innovation in it, it's just an idea executed well, based on past things like Palm Pilot for example. It seems to me, to have fair patents, you need to assume that value of everything can be broken to additive pieces - value of this idea, that idea, and then the value of the materials and energy from which it is built. But this is really hard, because things have value that also comes from combining these things. (In general, this is a problem with free market with respect to labor too, because you cannot really meaningfully determine what contribution of different types of labor is more valuable for the product to arise, but at the same time, the people need to be remunerated for the labor somehow.) On the other hand, in the world without patents, we assume that value of everything can be broken to little pieces (not so valuable by themselves) that are added by individuals in small amounts. So if all innovation is in the commons, no need to toil for 20 years to invent something. You build a little piece, add it to the pile, and everybody benefits because at the end of the day, you take lot more from the pile than you put in.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  > But why is the big company stealing it? Currently, it makes sense to steal it because the patent protections make it seem as if the idea itself is valuable It makes no sense to steal when the owner is likely to sue you for doing so, thus invalidating all of your work. It is also not a good business practice to steal. > in the world without the patents, what is valuable is the physical implementation, or rather, the coupling of both. You've discounted the value of research.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

Governments should probably just buy good patents and release them into the public domain. Not with eminent domain or anything like that, just offer to pay the market price for the patent. Then you solve this problem because the inventor gets their reward one way or the other but you don't have these really good inventions going ignored for twenty years because the market for the technology at the monopoly price is 2% of the size it is in the public domain. Preposterously, we have a system that does the opposite and encourages universities to file patents on publicly-funded research.

unityByFreedom 5y ago
> Governments should probably just buy good patents and release them into the public domain. Patents expire after 20 years. There is no need to buy them. You just invite more corruption if you tell the government to pick and choose which ones are "good".
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  20 years can be a long time. The corruption problem is the same one a with NIH grants and everything else, it's just doing it after the fact in exchange for the patent. You try to minimize the inefficiency as best you can, but even when it's not zero it can still be smaller than the inefficiency from waiting for the patent to expire.
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    A single patent can be bought for any amount, such as for life saving vaccines. I wouldn't like to see that price inflated by tax dollars, thus further reducing competition to where vaccine production becomes state-owned. Good thing the public will never go for this so I don't need to worry.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      > I wouldn't like to see that price inflated by tax dollars, thus further reducing competition to where vaccine production becomes state-owned. The entire point is that the patent goes into the public domain. The government pays money to cause it to not be patented anymore. > Good thing the public will never go for this so I don't need to worry. What does the public have anything to do with it? It's Congress that makes the laws. There are surely some companies with lobbyists who would like to make some tax dollars. Let a bit of corruption do something good for once.