Patents That Kill

wabrandsma (2551008) writes From The Economist: "The patent system, which was developed independently in 15th century Venice and then in 17th century England, gave entrepreneurs a monopoly to sell their inventions for a number of years. Yet by the 1860s the patent system came under attack, including from The Economist. Patents, critics argued, stifled future creativity by allowing inventors to rest on their laurels. Recent economic research backs this up."

Comments

Economist Article is Exceedingly Precise

[Strangely Familiar]

"The patent system encourages pharmaceuticals to pump out drugs aimed at those who have almost no chance of surviving the cancer anyway. This patent distortion costs the U.S. economy around $89 billion a year in lost lives." When I read this, I felt that the Economist article lost all credibilty. It is very hard to know anything about the actual monetary effects of patents in the economy. Then add the uncertainty of drug research, and the uncertainty of lives that are saved even with known drugs (not imagined drugs stimulated by an hypothetical patent system). And then, placing a dollar value on the saved lives. Really? $89 billion. Not $93 billion? Not $400 million? Not 800 billion? Are you sure lives are not actually saved under the current regime, compared to most alternative non-distorted patent systems? Given the uncertainties, getting the right order of magnitude would be a challenge, and two significant digits is absurd.