[Cdn-DMCA] JPEG Extinct? Send as input to Innovation Strategy!!

[Kristofer Coward]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2002 at 01:27:35PM -0400, Russell McOrmond wrote:
> > You have to remember that not all markets have low barriers to entry
> > (outside of 'IP'). An especially important example would be the market
> > for pharmaceuticals and medical devices. In the interest of protecting
> > public safety, regulatory obstacles are introduced that make the
> > process of bringing a medical innovation to market costly enough to
> > justify patent protection while those costs are recovered.
> 
>   You may be surprised at how minimal these obstacles are compared to what 
> you would desire from a public safety standpoint.  My father-in-law is a 
> retired scientist from Health Canada, and he could tell you many horror 
> stories.
> 
> > That said, there are definitely areas in which patents _are_ doing more
> > harm than good.
> 
> 
> Not to swing too far off topic, but ;-)
> 
>   I believe the pharmachemical industry is another example where it is
> doing more harm than good.  Our drug-focused "just-in-time Sick Care
> System" has not been able to become a preventative-focused "health care
> system" partly because of the funding issues with proprietary drugs.
> 
> 
>   I happen to believe (again without adequate scientific proof as the
> information isn't available to me) that we (as taxpayers) would save money
> in our "Health Care" system if instead of paying outrageous fees for
> pharmacare, that government directly funded primary research.  This
> research would then have a "public license" that allowed for the full use
> of this information by the generic drug industry.
> 
>   Those who want to have a monopoly on a derivative drug could then pay
> royalty fees to the government, rather than the other way around after the
> government gave away its research to the private sector!

I wan't providing the pharmaceutical inustry as a shining beacon of the
value of patents, just as a demonstration of circumstances in whicht
hey're useful. As for your suggstions, I mostly agree, though I don't
think there should be too many obstacles placed before people who have
some innovation that the government pharma research agency doesn't
believe will be viable.

A system, not entirely dissimilar to the current system, that operates
alongside a government-based system, would help "crackpot" researchers
bring their discoveries to the public, and that would be in the public
interest.

Another point worth noting, is that a lot of the expensive drugs are
really unnecesary. There is a lot of New Drug B, which is basically the
same as Generic Drug A, apart from less of a nausea side-effect, being
prescribed to people who were never made nauseous by Generic Drug A in
the first place.

-- 
Kristofer Coward				http://unripe.melon.org/
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