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Biotech Report Says IP Spurs Innovation
ananyo writes "A report presented at the 2012 BIO International Convention in Boston, Massachusetts suggests that patents do not stifle progress when they occur at early phases of research, as some have suggested. Over the past decade, increases in patents have been matched by growth in the biotech and pharmaceutical sectors in India, Brazil, Singapore and other countries with emerging economies. The strength of patent rights can be quantified in an index ranging from 0 (no patent rights) to 5 (very strong). Over time, the countries that U.S. biotech and pharmaceutical companies have invested in have moved up the IP barometer, the report (PDF) says."
The entire premise of the article is that patents == innovation, and thus, more patents indicate more innovation. As an example, the article mentions that:
Similarly, after Taiwan instituted a rule about IP based on government-funded findings, the Bayh-Dole Act, university patenting increased by 354% between 2004 and 2009.
Clearly, the increase was due to an acceleration of innovative research and not because of an act that made previously un-patentable research now available for patents.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I kid you not (I read TFA). At least the have a good acronym (BIO).
This pro-ACTA pro-IP organization writes lots of so-called white-papers.
This is one more of the same.
Think of them as a lobbyist organization for the pro-IP side of the world
including Big Pharma and Microsoft: http://www.pugatch-consilium.com/?page_id=580
Here's their list of publications which includes pro-ACTA stuff:
http://www.pugatch-consilium.com/?page_id=590
This isn't news. It's more astroturfing by the "IP is Awesome" side of the world."
There's a reason that Microsoft and Big Pharma pays these guys. This paper is one such.
E
I call BS.
Myriad's patents do not claim the gene per se, rather an isolated form of the gene.
In fact there are no patents of "genes" unless they involve isolated genetic material and describe specific functionality of the isolated material, as does the Myriad patent.
A correlation does not a causation make.
The idea that software patents should not exist is based on the idea that all software is simply sets of algorithms. Therefore all software can be boiled down to mathematics: algorithms and formulas. According to commonly held ideas about patent law: "You cannot patent a formula."
Sorry, I posted this a sec ago as AC by accident.