Should a New Technology Change the Patent System?

linuxizer writes "Congress seems poised to turn an effort to create a pathway for generic biotech drugs, such as Remicade, into the exact opposite. Instead of the 5-year protection that traditional pharmaceuticals get, or the 0-year protection that the FTC recommends, the bill offers 12-year exclusivity with renewability for minor changes. The issue is highly charged, with activists waging a campaign to change the bill. Yet it also raises interesting questions for other technologies. To what extent do the traditional contours of patent law need to change in response to new technologies with a different set of market realities (biotech drugs are 22 times more expensive on average, and development costs for generics will be substantially higher) and in what direction? Need every new technological category get its own patent rules, and how do those rules get decided?"

how do those rules get decided?

[Fizzol]

They get decided whichever way is more profitable for the corporation and more expensive for the consumer, such is always the way with US health care.

Re:People with the Money Call the Shots

[Thykka]

This is exactly the reason democracy fails. People need to realize, that governments aren't in no way necessary or even beneficial for healthy societies. In a world without such authorities, the success of companies would be measured solely by their ability to provide the best service to their customers. Without artificial restrictions, such as patents or copyrights, there'd never be an opportunity for a company not to try to improve their services. A popular argument against removing patent and copyright laws is that a company has to invest significant amounts of time and money in inventing new products (such as medicine in this article's context) and that the patent would allow them to make profit out of their investment. I believe, that if a certain product really requires years of exclusive research it also isn't possible for competing companies to copy in a timeframe that wouldn't allow for the original inventor to gain reasonable profit. Nevertheless, if another company is able to provide better selling service regarding another company's invention, why not allow it? After all, we should be concerned about mankind's collective well-being and not the profit of select companies.

Re:People without the Money Burn a Witch

[Hoi Polloi]

I wouldn't worry if I was them. Sick people can't move very fast and get tired easily.