Comments on: The outrage of thought control

By: ivan

ivan — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 03:28:02 +0000

guofeng: i disagree, agagooga is right. Many academics have postualted that governmental aid will spur creativity, and it is the corporate culture that is hindering R&D.

Agagooga: coming from you pt, patents are more evil than copyrights. Copyrights give a qualifed monoploy, whereas patents give an absolute monopoly.

By: Guofeng

Guofeng — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 06:46:36 +0000

Agagooga:

We could.

However, patents are currently easily renewed with just a slight molecular change in the drug. Farm subsidies such as the EU Common Agricultural Policy will continue as long as we have the likes of Jose Bove organising protests in order to protect French ‘culture’.

Not that I’m disagreeing with you, but it is interesting that you suggest the public sector finance R&D projects. Most would prefer the government sector keep out of industries, given the common perception that the government is always less efficient than the private sector.

By: Agagooga

Agagooga — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 19:03:24 +0000

We could solve the problem by shortening patent durations (at least they’re not as long as copyright durations!!!), ending farm subsidies and spending the money on subsidising poor world drug purchases (or financing R&D in return for lower pill costs).

By: AcidFlask

AcidFlask — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 18:34:01 +0000

The rest of the world likes to complain about America but ends up subjugate to it anyway for economic reasons.

By: Guofeng

Guofeng — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:32:51 +0000

The dillemia is that IP protection is necessary for private research to survive.

Actually, there is a win-win situation. Most third world countries currently cannot afford to buy drugs at first world price. Therefore, theoretically, there is negligible revenue lost if they start selling this drugs at a lower margin in these poor countries. Overall, there should be an absolute revenue/profit increase. The problem, however, is how to stop people from first world countries smuggling the cheap drugs from the third world countries to sell/consume in the first world. If one can think of an effective solution, then there should not be anymore excuses from Big Pharma.