Biotech Values

[zipjet]

Patents:

I suggest we back up and think about WHY we have patents.

Patents serve a fundamental economic purpose - to reward innovations and the innovator financially so that they can continue the inventing things that make our lives better. (Good read covers Corning inventing the wave guide)*

That function has never been more at risk than today. Copycats are faster and can duplicate almost anything which will quickly remove the incentive to invent if patents are not allowed.

In the drug area, it is patents that have allowed us to layer on a very expensive drug approval process that begins with extensive lab and clinical work and then application for approval by the FDA. Without patent drugs, we will see far less funding for science and might as well close up the FDA because non-patent protected drugs will not support the structure. Deciding that we will not allow the patenting of genes because they are part of the creation, seems sensible until we consider the implications. There likely needs to be some balance to how genetic patents operate but to eliminate them seems an error to me.

Perhaps, everything that can be invented has already been invented and we should close the patent office too.**

There is an alternative to a system of patents. We can turn over the funding of science and especially drug development totally to the government. Perhaps, Obama would like that.

JMO

ij

* http://www.amazon.com/Silent-War-Business-Battles-Americas/dp/0679728279/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288530735&sr=1-2

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_H._Duell