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Trans-Pacific Partnership May Endanger World Health, Newly Leaked Chapter Shows
blottsie writes WikiLeaks has released an updated version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) chapter on intellectual property. The new version of the texts, dated May 2014, show that little improvement has been made to sections critics say would hurt free speech online. Further, some of the TPP's stipulations could have dire consequences for healthcare in developing nations. The Daily Dot reports: "Nearly all of the changes proposed by the U.S. advantage corporate entities by expanding monopolies on knowledge goods, such as drug patents, and impose restrictive copyright policies worldwide. If it came into force, TPP would even allow pharmaceutical companies to sue the U.S. whenever changes to regulatory standards or judicial decisions affected their profits. Professor Brook K. Baker of Northeastern U. School of Law [said] that the latest version of the TPP will do nothing less than lengthen, broaden, and strengthen patent monopolies on vital medications."
Nearly all governments, and most people, believe that patents encourage innovation by ensuring that innovators can profit from their investment of time and resources
Given your blanket generalization I'll retort "No, they don't". Numerous countries have been force into following the American model to compete (Europe), but that is not the same thing as "agreeing" as you so bluntly claimed. China has ignored US patents and Copyrights for decades, with no detriment to their trade. In fact the trade deficit between the US and China has consistently grown.
The US strong arming someone into enforcing US Patent laws is not the same thing as a country agreeing with the Laws. Perhaps you should consider why numerous countries are very hostile toward US companies, especially in the Medical and Agricultural sectors.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
pharmaceuticals are the one area where the duration of patents is about right to offset the massive delays and costs of development
With some simple reforms, the delays and costs could be massively reduced. Some of the testing phases could be combined or eliminated. Computer simulations could be used for some early phases. The US could accept more testing done overseas, as long as appropriate protocols are followed. And there could be harsh financial sanctions on bureaucrats that let applications sit in their inbox while patients are dying.
You're givin' us trickle-down there. Don't care for that crap.
You know, the entire House of representatives is up for election, every single one of the bastards. It's a big opportunity to vote out both factions of the incumbent ruling party. Sure would be cool to see it happen.
That's a hint y'all, you know, in case you really want to, like, do something about this TPP business.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
While I can see the temptation, it isn't going to work so well. That war was of states verses states, with access to military hardware on both sides. A revolution in the US today would consist of semi-organised armies of volunteers with rifles verses a government with long-range artillery, bomber aircraft, advanced intelligence-gathering equipment and much more powerful fully-automatic assault rifles. No contest. The best you could hope for would be a long insurgency, fighting dirty and adopting terrorist tactics of hiding in the civilian population and keeping identities secret, French Resistance style - but that's not enough to overthrow a government. The idea of a violent uprising isn't realistic.
A better proposal would be to shift the rules a bit through technology. A sufficient investment in new forms of communication technology could effectively undermine a lot of commercially-based power - it doesn't matter how strict the copyright laws are if they can't be enforced, and if all communications are encrypted and avoid passing through any bottlenecks where control can be exerted then it becomes much harder for government to monitor or control them. Mass-piracy, properly exercised, could cripple the entertainment-media industry. It just has to be made into something which is near-universally accepted by the public, easy enough for anyone to take part with less effort than buying from legitimate channels, and safe from any form of copyright enforcement.
Patents in pharmacuticals work well...Their application to software has been a disaster.
Something the average software engineer might not appreciate is that patents for pharmaceuticals are a bit like copyright. They cover a specific molecule, which is basically an implementation. Anybody can tweak the molecule and if it works they can sell a competing product. Of course, doing so still costs hundreds of millions of dollars in testing/development costs, so that is why we tend to only have so many molecules in each class.
The patent office sometimes does issue very broad patents in pharmaceuticals, such as patents on a gene or molecular target, but for the most part they tend to get struck down by the courts, for all the same reasons that software patents cause so much trouble.
When applied to a single molecule patents work well in pharmaceuticals because they allow a company to be rewarded for its huge initial outlay in development costs despite their very low marginal cost of production. Now, companies do try to abuse patent law to extend their monopolies and this is something that I fully support punishing harshly. Society makes a deal - we'll pay $7/pill for about 10 years so that we have new pills, but after that anybody can get them for pennies - companies do not have some kind of right to profits - it is the offer society makes because it serves all of our collective interests.
I'm also for having the NIH actually fund more end-to-end drug development where the government bears all the risk of failure, but also owns the patents (which can then be freely licensed to US-based manufacturers, or those in countries who make similar investments and reciprocate). That would in theory lead to drugs that cost pennies from day one, while leaving the private pharma industry intact until such a time as the government-funded model is proven and ramps up and generally takes over (likely slowly hiring all the private pharma employees who actually do R&D/etc).
Patents in pharmacuticals work well.
I have worked for pharmaceutical companies. They work well if you want these companies to make a lot of money. If general health of your population is the goal, then they are a total disaster. You don't work on cures, you work on treatments, for example. Why sell someone a week of pills, when you could sell them pills for a lifetime? Even worse is that a lot of money for these treatments is not invested by the company that holds the patent. But often heavily supported by the state through universities and grants.
The free market, capitalism, fails with health care at every level.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?