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The Law of Unintended Consequences: Patents
An anonymous reader writes "Fortune has an
interesting article about the relationship between patent law and innovation. It compares the biotech industry with the computer industry and discusses the effects of the Bayh-Dole amdendment, which has allowed universities to make a lot of cash. But in the process innovation and scientific collaboration seem to have been stifled."
Of course patents help science and tech! If patents hadn't existed, The Great E could never have gotten a job at the patent office, and may never have ended up making his amazing findings, or maybe never publishing them.
Where would we be then?
Before waxing philosophical on economics, you could do yourself a service by skimming the academic literature on the subject. There are good, free services like econlit.org and scholar.google.com
All determinations of time presuppose something permanent in perception and that this permanent cannot be in the self, s
... is actually a fundamental problem built into all IP law: the assumption that money is the prime motivator for creative endeavors. (And yes, science is a creative endeavor.) This is a myth successfully propagated by generations of moneymen, but a myth is all it is. Scientists, like artists, certainly want to make a living from their work, but the best ones pretty much always do what they do simply because they want to do it, not because they expect it to make them rich. If your primary concern is making money, OTOH, you don't have the time (or, probably, the brainpower; suits who think of themselves as intellectuals because they have an MBA simplye have no idea what goes into a serious scientific education) to become good at anything that constitutes real creative work.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
While there are certainly areas of crossover, like the algorithms to filter through the volumes of data that biotech firms have, the fundamental difference between bio companies and computer companies is that biotech produces *something*. Computer technology is basically ephemeral. But Biotech leads to medicines and other discoveries that are both difficult to discover and inherently valuable.
It makes sense to cover biotech with patents, as it took significant effort to research and develop those things.
Computer tech, on the other hand, is primarily focused on automating processes. Computers are inherently faster than humans at doing repetitive tasks, especially in regards to calculations. But it is difficult to find a program that implements a process that doesn't exist already in another form, or that isn't blatantly obvious to everyone. Something like developing "a secure mechanism by which encrypted media data is stored on a device and available for playback when read and decrypted by the client application" would probably be a good candidate for a patent. "Users can click once and purchase an item without having to load the shopping cart menu" is both obvious and not really that far removed from the systems that preceded it.
That people get greedy and innovation slows down when companies are competing is just a small side-effect of the patent process.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Nothing will hurt innovation more than the Patent Reform Act of 2005.
Why? Because it sets limits on damages for willful and even fraudulent patent infringement so that large corporations will find patents easy to ignore.
Meanwhile, the limits are still big enough to remain a deterrant for small companies and independent inventors.
In other words, if you are a big corporations, you might be able to knowingly ignore patents while startups and inventors don't have the same benefit.
There are some good improvements in the Patent Reform Act of 2005 but this fundamental flaw is going to hurt innovation by making the patent system benefit a small percentage of companies at everyone else's expense.
Please write to your representatives and respectfully ask them to fix the flaws before it becomes law.
Grease keeps systems working smoothly. Lawyers, money speculators, used car salesman, and a zillion other occupations are society's grease. In a frozen static society, you could get rid of them once you had polished the system to the nth degree. But in a dynamic society, these greasers keep the various diverse parts all working together relatively smoothly.
But too much grease in a gearbox bogs it down. That's what has happened with intellectual property in general. Those idiots in Washington listened to their corporate sponsors and believed what they said about the more the merrier.
At some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, business and politicians will notice what the true innovators and researchers have long since learned the hard way, and cut back on the flow of grease. In the meantime, the rest of us are stuck with completely counterpdocutive IP legal wrangling getting in our way. It may take a long time to notice the drop in innovation and productivity, but I sure hope not.
Infuriate left and right
Also, if someone wants to question the patent system in biotech, then what's the alternative? Patents have, despite a few cases of misuse, been proven to be the suitable intellectual property rights regime in that field. In contrast, today's leading software companies like Microsoft, Oracle and SAP needed no patents at all during the first 10+ years of their existence. SAP only had a total of four patents a few years ago. It would be too simplistic to say that copyright law alone protects software because it's actually a combination of copyright, trade secrets, complexity, trade marks, and the possibility of converting a technological lead into sustainable economic value (by selling products, acquiring customers, building the brand identity of an innovator). That form of protection is much more dynamic than patents because it requires someone to actually market a product, as opposed to just sitting on a patent and waiting for others to unwillingly and unknowingly "infringe" upon it.
The other issue is who should own the outcome of the research work that is performed with tax money. I don't think it's reasonable to let the public pay twice for the same work, upfront by employing many such scientists for decades in each case (the fewest of which ever come up with something that can be commercialized on a large scale) and subsequently through patent royalties.
From the article.
" A 1979 audit of government-held patents showed that fewer than 5% of some 28,000 discoveries--all of them made with the help of taxpayer money--had been developed, because no company was willing to risk the capital to commercialize them without owning title"
To all those in this thread that argue "scientists will do it for the love" or any of that crap. That sentence above says it all. Scientists might do it for the love, but companies won't pay to develop it. I work at a biotech company - we won't do stuff that won't make us money. We have to pay our salaries. If we do something that we DON'T have patent coverage on, our competition will just copy it at no cost to them... oh yeah - we will have spent A LOT of money to do the development. If we can't get an exclusive license, then for the most part we won't touch it. It WONT make financial sense to do so.
You can preach about "greater good of man" and all that. At the end of the day I just want to send my daughter to college and be able to go surfing. To do that, we have to make tools that help people, and I enjoy being part of that. I love solving the problems. I enjoy working on the projects. BUT - I have to eat and the company has to make money.
Gavin Fischer
First of all, this article is well-researched but poorly written and the author fails to achieve a coherent voice and statement. IMHO, this was a waste of 10 pages. Secondly, I have worked in the biotech industry for last 6 years, 2 years of which have been with THE largest biotech company and the remaining 4 years with various start-ups. From this insider's perspective, I can tell you that the number one challenge of innovating in the biotech industry has less to do with IP law and more to do with the lack of management experience amongst life scientists. When you have industry where start-ups can get $90 million in venture capital and ballon to 150 employees without have a commercial product, that's not an IP issue... it's business 101 issue... think 1990's dot.com reduex
The problem with patenting algorythms and functions is in the very concept and purpose of computers. Programming languages are basically tools for expressing thoughts. As human toungues are used for expressing speakable words, programming languages are used to implement thinking processes of the mind. Data is non-material, and computers merely receive, process and output data, as human nervous system does. Algorythms are same as thoughts - they are ways of analyzing and processing data.
Patenting physical devices (ever computer hardware) is fine by me, but patenting algorythms is comparable to patenting and restricting ways of thinking. Imagine what would happen if a law ordered people to think (or avoid thinking) in a certain way...
I am not saying that everything on the computer must be completely patent-free. I believe that only unique, sophisticated and unparalleled applications should be allowed to be patented by the US Patent Bureau, for a limited time.
- Matvei M.S
09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0
Is human nature. Greed is a vice, not a virture, for a reason. Greed causes people to do evil and harmfull things and should not be confused with ambition. The ambitious man wants to build a business that is rich and successful, the greedy man wants to build an empire that will rule the economy with an iron fist and drain every last drop of wealth out of it that it can.
One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how accurate Judao-Christian scripture is about teaching about human nature. We see the result of greed in the dotcom bubble burst and we see the natural lack of general altruism all around us from the greedy bastards like Andrew Fastow that tanked Enron to the people now trying to scam FEMA and Red Cross by claiming to be refugees. Human nature toward economics is greed, not altruism and not enlightened self-interest. That is why both pure Capitalism and essentially all forms of Socialism have utterly failed.
The problem I have with long patents is that they subject the economy to the control of lazy, greedy men and women. I and other fiction bloggers are proof that you don't need a long monopoly on your ideas to want to produce literature, music and discover new ideas. I have probably about 25-30 pages worth of just fiction material up for free for the other Christian sci-fi fans that read it, yet I don't really care right now about making money off of it. My muse is Christ, what is your muse?
Shorter monopolies will light a fire under the asses of these people and force them to create new things. I hate to break it to the laissez faire purists, but the security afforded by these long monopolies breeds **sloth**, not creativity. Too many seem to have forgotten that old saying: necessity is the mother of all invention.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
One fascinating phenomenon is how long it takes for the rough consensus of the "innovation community" (much of which is represented by many Slashdotters), that patents interfere with innovation, to begin to be reported in the "finance community" which depends on the innovators. That such reporting happens at all is really a testament to the relative freedom of the press - relative to all human history, that is. That such reporting will have little to no effect on patent interference with innovation is a testament to the relative slavery of politics, which controls the patent system, to corporations, which care solely about property, and not at all about "innovation" (so long as it's not necessary to profits). Perhaps relative to human history our politics is not so bad, but "not as bad as thousands of years of tyranny" isn't good enough.
--
make install -not war
From TFA
Universities have evolved from public trusts into something closer to venture capital firms. What used to be a scientific community of free and open debate now often seems like a litigious scrum of data-hoarding and suspicion. And what's more, Americans are paying for it through the nose.
And who's to blame for that? Yup, the good old American system.
The fact of the matter is, America doesn't care about science. We worship things like actors and singers and sports figures and then snub our nose at scientists in academia and pay them crap. Business is the most popular major, not because it provides the most to society, but rather it is the most profitable. In other countries, scientists are looked up to and admired (for example, India).
In the US, the budgets have been cut drastically for academia (most grants are getting a 8% cut straight across the board this past year). Adjusting for inflation, the NIH and NSF budget's have actually shrunk over the past 10 years-- which is ridiculous considering the massive amounts of improvement in technology that have occured. With such a drastic decrease in available funds, researchers need to tighten their projects, search for alternative funding, and be wary of who they tell people what they are doing. Sharing data with someone you aren't collaborating with or on unpublished work is a sure way to find yourself out the door in academia. This is further being complicated by the fact that tenure reviews are starting to shift from the old paradigm of how many papers you published, to a newer paradigm of how much grant money you bring in (while this is usually correllated, it is not always the case).
It's not the scientists that have created the environment, it's the environment that has created the scientists. There's a reason why College Professors were listed as one of the top 5 undervalued professions in America. Patents are the one bone that academia gets and the writer seems to think that scientists are exploiting America. Academia is already losing a lot of great talent (and henceforth, progress) as it is in America due to lack of funding-- how do you think it would be if patents didn't exists?
Assuming those numbers are NOT adjusted for inflation, then 12 billion 1980 dollars = about 29 billion in 2003 dollars. Growing 29 billion to 179 billion is an 8% increase per year.
I also wonder if this is a linear increase or if there was something sudden jump at some point. Taking two data points and trying to make some sort of comparison other then "this one is bigger" seems rather dumb.
In 1980 I was single, but in 2003 I had a family of four. That doesn't mean I was reproducing at a rate of 6.2% per year.
Can someone point to a data source that has amount spent on drugs each year? I searched the web, but so far I don't see any sources I would trust, mostly stories similar to this.
"Photon Bounce -- Breaking the laws of physics, but not that of probability & statistic," by, 'Photon Vu' (This entire article copyrighted 9/14th/2005 by Mr. Photon Vu ). This application for patent is applied for by Mr. Photon Vu, dated September 14th, 2005 (11pm, Indianapolis Time, EST) for the design and use of the Photon Bounce and for the design and use of the uniformly distributed electron cloud whose statistical probability is at 0.5 throughout the layer and whose thickness is defined to be width of one electron whose statistical probability is at 0.5. [Begin of target description of patent concept] Patent is for the configuration and use of photon per the non-classical physic bounce to accomplish simultaneous computation via a statistical presence of data formed beneath an electron cloud with statistically uniform region whose probability is of 0.5 to achieve consolidated probability of 1.0 which designates simultaneously solved solutions and consolidated probability of 0.0 which designates unsolved solutions ( which represents region of theoretically-proven unsolvable problems as posed by the data that parameterize the simultaneous equations to be solved ). Details of this configuration are described below from item 1 through item 4: Item 1. Photon have no mass, thus can not cause a physical deflection in physical media, so the phenomenon being used is a statistical bounce in which a photon whose statistical probability is at 1.0 is directed at a region whose statistical probability is uniformly distributed throughout and whose statistical probability is at 0.5 . Item 2. A 'bounce' is defined as the statistical influence of the photon whose statistical probability is 1.0 on the region whose statistical probability is at 0.5 such that when there is a presence of a data point, representing one of the parameter of the simultaneous equation to be solved, all simultaneous computation occur for all data points represented in the computational region, formed by the evenly distributed layer of electrons whose probability was stable at 0.5 at the moment prior to the impact of the photon against it. Item 3. Multiple photons whose statistical probability of 1.0 can be used simultaneously against the uniform layer of electrons whose statistical probability is at 0.5 through the layer, with the requirement that not more than one photon can occupy the same space/time within the uniform layer of electrons. Item 4. Data points are represented by beams of photons of varying energy levels (frequencies) directed at the electron cloud. [End of target description of patent concept] Page 1 of 1 and only 1 page, final. BTW3. the key is not in the document above. It's something that every little kid already know, 'things that glow in the dark'. a.k.a (read below) [ i prefer the kid's version and wording ;))))) ]
Energy levels in stable electron clouds are at specific energy 'rungs' which dance with bypassing photons. That's classical physics. In non-classical physics, the electron is a statistical entity whose distribution goes to infinity in space/time. However, even photons have statistical significance, of 1.0. So, when a photon that exist in physical space as a quanta hits an electron (which is really a statistical entity) it converts onto a wavelet, a statistical distribution that we can control. Thus, the statistical significance of an electron whose energy level is quantized already; and thus, a statistically significant computation event occur (not a physical event). Data of a simultaneous equations can be parameterized by electrons that are 'pumped' to a specific set of rungs ( yet again by photons, prior to the computation event ). If you layer this data set with a layer of electrons whose statistical probability is at 0.5 and whose thickness is exactly 1 electron (whose statistical probability is 0.5), you get a region of time/space that can convert the bounce of photons above it into an instantaneous computing event of all simultaneous equations, using the presence of the electron
I'm surprised the parent was modded +5 insightful, since I'm not sure the poster actually took the time to read the article. Anyhow...
Technically, the Bayh-Dole law that the article talks about doesn't really say too much about companies being able/unable to patent the results of research that's been privately funded.
Even prior to the law, if you want to spend your money on research, you of course had the rights to patent the results. However, Bayh-Dole made it so that your company could spend tax-payer(read 'our') money to do research and development and then still be assured of your company owning the resulting intellectual property. So, the whole thing really seems like a big corporate well fair racket, whereby companies have been essentially gifted valuable IP by the American tax-payers.
Maybe the NIH or NSF should start acting a little bit like a VC firm in these cases. That is, if companies and/or universities want to profit by patenting the results of publicly funded research, then maybe the funding federal agency should get a proportion of the proceeds. That money could then be funded into other new and interesting research projects.
Just look at art and science in totalitarian countries. In all former communist countries, you definitely couldn't get rich by doing science, not even in relative comparison to general population. Yet they had a lot of excellent scientists, and produced huge amount of research.
As far as art goes, not only you couldn't get rich, in many cases you could get yourself locked up. Still, all the Soviet block countries had very active unofficial art scenes.
AccountKiller
AFAIK, most scientific journals publish discoveries that were classified by peers as "interesting" in some way. It could be commercially useful, useful for further research, or just plain interesting from an "intelectual curiosity" point of view.
In my field, it is often (usually?) impossible to tell whether a result is going to be useful or not.
AccountKiller
Wrong root cause--the blame lies with the left and their reaction to the Vietnam War, with their one permanent reform the destruction of basic research in United States universities through the Mansfield Amendment. Just go to the musty bookshelves of one's university to the mathematics section and look for books before 1970. Many of them will have an acknowledgement of funding through some agency such as the Office of Navel Research.
The Mansfield Amendment deliberately destroyed the relationship between the United States military and university basic research, so that instead of getting crumbs from a gargantuan Department of Defense budget, which meant the crumbs were quite substantial, basic research had to rely on the politically castrated National Science Foundation with no important constituency to push for funding.
Faced with the prospect of basic research almost completely disappearing, the only alternative was something similar to Bayh-Dole, because there was no way anymore to politically push through explicit funding. What an irony that now what were once considered public goods are now the property of the largest corporations and the rich only get richer. Now that is the true unintended consequence considering who initiated the Mansfield Amendment.
Donate free food here
but I am sure it ain't right. Check the historical budget tables at www.omb.gov. NIH and NSF are doing just fine, thank you very much. Unfortunately, most of the data is not adjusted for inflation but the increases are so large that it is obvious that it is greater than inflation (around 2-3% year, or 25% over ten).
Also, how precisely are you measuring "provision to society"? If you are making claims about it, you should have a good answer.
This is all about the spirit of free enterprise. We need research and development in order to progress as a society, but like all good things R&D involves time and resources and both thoses things cost money.
Where does that money come from?
Democrats/Librals believe that if the people pay for it, the people own it the benefit to this is that scientists are free to access the real pay dirt - information.
Republicans/Red-Necks believe that a grant is just that, a gift of money and that scientists should be free to profit from their innovation - the benefit of this is that you attract brighter minds and the industry can run itself relieving the tax burden of a constant stream of grants.
The question really is what is more important, a free market or a freedom of information?
Thats not an easy question to answer. People would say that Russia was a perfect example of why the Republicans are right. Others might say that America is a perfect example of why the Democrats are right. I say the truth is that both sides have fudged the system to a point where neither can be right.
I would have more sympathy for big R&D companies if I thought for one second that they had stopped asking for research grants or tax cuts to support their work. I would have more sympathy for big R&D companies if they could be trusted to return their products back into the public domain where it belongs. I would have more sympathy for R&D companies if they could be trusted to act with compassion where the bottom line must be second to the saving of lives and removal of people from absolute poverty. The one thing these companies can be trusted to do is protect their investors money, but thats about the only thing they are obligated to do by law.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Well, not quite, perhaps, but...
I think the debate about whether patents are stifling innovation or not misses an important point: that most inventions don't happen because an inventor suddenly invents a brilliant new gadget. The real way most things are invented is when somebody has a problem and solves it; and most often the person doesn't even think of it as anything special, because it isn't in that situation - it's just a handy solution to a problem, so he/she could get on with the job at hand. Later, perhaps, somebody combines a number of these solutions and it turns out to be a great idea.
I think people who are just 'inventors' are likely to be some sort of pathological phenomenon; a kind of obsessive tinkerers, perhaps.
As for patents - they certainly make it difficult for others to make money from their good ideas, and I have no doubt that at some point it will become too cumbersome; then it will change. But since people will always run in to new problems and look for solutions, innovation will happen.
Perhaps when it becomes clear enough that the patent system, with all the mindlessly stupid patents for trivial non-inventions, simply doesn't work, perhaps then will people begin to 'anti-patent' their inventions by immediately laying them out in the public domain; that way you at least ensure that nobody else can shut you out from making a fair earning from your good ideas.
The argument that only granting exclusive use of some specific piece of knowledge can make commercialising products based on the idea viable financially is unconvincing. (Leaving aside that this does not eliminate risk because competitive products based on other ideas may still appear.) If necessary, have a system where the government compensates organisations for development in certain cases (perhaps with tax breaks) to give an advantage to the original developer. But do not prevent others from making improvements.
The patent system adds huge costs for ephemeral benefits. Creativity and invention prosper in an atmosphere of freedom, not one of bureaucratic control.
... funding through some agency such as the Office of Navel Research.
That would be research funded by the Navel Academy, I presume.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
ha! lessee, we gave the keys to our minds and souls to corporate America, and now we're surprised that a collection of "individuals" possessing all the qualities of a paranoid schizophreniac with a single-minded focus on profit had the wherewithall to screw us over.
will wonders never cease.
The odd thing about this sad state of affairs.... If I'm reading this right, the Federal Government retains royalty free rights to virtually all the research it has funded. Which means, at least in theory, it could seriously leverage its position to purchase drugs for the medicare prescription benefits. Something that has apparently not occured...
Which just goes to show who the politicians really represent.
I agree in general, but my point is that money men need legal protection for their risk - which is then not exactly risk, is it?
And the effect you mention in the last sentence is exactly the problem of patents - if somebody can claim a legal monopoly, others won't bother investing in the market - which reduces innovation.
That's the reason legally protected monopolies are bad for the species - in the pure free market case, monopolies which arise (by natural means) are quickly (relative to the existing case anyway) torn down by investment in alternative means of accomplishing the same function. If the monopoly is legally protected - and patents overly broad - there is no incentive to invest in alternative and probably better means of accomplishing the same function; you won't make any money anyway.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!