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Open Source Drug Discovery Prompts a Fundamental Heart Failure Breakthrough
An anonymous reader writes "Case-Western researchers, led by Saptarsi Haldar MD., have made a fundamental discovery that could prevent heart failure after reviewing the "chemical recipe" for a cancer-treating molecule made open source by Jay Bradner MD. (whose TED Talk articulates the open source approach to drug discovery) This cross-discipline discovery, which was published in the August 2013 issue of CELL, is a fundamental breakthrough in heart failure research, and highlights the value of an open source approach outside of software development."
Before you know it, IP with be severely weakened and all of us will have increased standard of living - except for the poor poor billionaires!
Look, if we don't run our society according to everything that seemed like a good idea in 1781, nothing will ever get invented.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
When it comes to science, there is no need to license a discovery to make it available to all. Simply publish and don't attempt to patent it. Scientific knowledge is public once published.
Absolutely. And guess what would happen to any drug company that did not patent their drugs? How would they be able to compete with companies that did not have to pay the hundreds of millions in research to get the drug approved? The only reasonable alternative to patent systems that I can see are (a) trade secrets, which means that the discovery is not made available to all, or (b) go back to a patron system where a generous benefactor foots the bill for research, in which case the research that the scientists do is only what the benefactor wants, which may be the ultimate cure for baldness or a little dick. I think patents are better than the alternatives. That is, unless you can come up with a better idea. Just be sure to think it through...
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
I'm not sure that it was a good idea even in 1781.
Basically, the mercantile class wrote the constitution and early laws. The American Revolution was a mercantile uprising against the "tyranny" of England and it's taxes and regulations.
Today, of course, the mercantile "class" are the corporations who have completely captured the government.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that patents slow the process of invention and only provide benefits for the entrenched last generation of science and technology.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
No, the people working the fields grow the food and the people driving the trucks and manning the cash register distribute it. And even the organizational work is mostly done by middle managers. All the billionaires do is get a cut of other people's work and occasionally destroy their livelihoods.
And you think it takes a billionaire to write a book or a song?
And if you give him a billion dollars, all he will see are the serfs he's entitled to.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.