That argument could use a cross reference with this article. If you read this article, you will see that the drug provided by Roche was one drug in a 12 drug cocktail, yet accounted for more than 25% of the cost of the total cocktail program.
Ah, the R&D fallacy. Do you know who holds a significant number of patents on drugs, even AIDS/HIV drugs? The US Gov. and academeic insitutions funded with a mix of public and private dollars. The patent holder then licenses the patent exclusively at a low cost to the large pharmaceutical company. The R&D argument doesn't hold water at all anymore when the marketing budget of a pharmaceutical company oustrips theur R&D budget because they have to convince everyone that weekly Prozac is now the way to go since the old kind is no longer protected by patent.
While the consideration part in the prevous post is correct, more importantly, a pre-existing contractual obligation cannot be waived without exchange of consideration. Furthermore, there may also be problems with duress or "business compulsion." However, this all depends on the original contract and whether or not UGO reserved any rights to unilaterally alter the agreement. I suspect that UGO has some termination or durational clause in the original contract. But if they owe you that money and never indicated that they intended to terminate your contratual rights, they cannot do so retrospectively.
But, this may all be moot since the dollar amounts are low enough that pursuing these claims in court will be too expensive, unless you tried to take them to small claims court. And then you would have a hell of a time establishing jurisdiction over UGO. Which leads us to a solution already proposed by some postings, a class action. While each individual claim is too small to attract the attention of a lawyer operating on contingency fees, in the aggregate, that may be a different story.
So figure out if you can rally typically insular geeks together for a class action if you care enough and dig your heels in if you are prepared to demolish whaterver relationship you have with UGO to collect on the past 2 months. Who knows, maybe you can use the money you get in settlement for capital and construct a similar network with your co0litigants and avoid problems like this in the future. Good luck.
Oh, and by the way, I believe the case Erasmus Darwin is referring to is Hamer v. Sidway, an old case from the 1800's. And the court held for the nephew, sonce forgoing a legal right, in this case the right to somke, drink and gamble, was sufficient consideration to create a binding contract. Don't take legal advice from someone who is not a lawyer, or at least in law shool;-)
Slashdot Mirror
That argument could use a cross reference with this article. If you read this article, you will see that the drug provided by Roche was one drug in a 12 drug cocktail, yet accounted for more than 25% of the cost of the total cocktail program.
Ah, the R&D fallacy. Do you know who holds a significant number of patents on drugs, even AIDS/HIV drugs? The US Gov. and academeic insitutions funded with a mix of public and private dollars. The patent holder then licenses the patent exclusively at a low cost to the large pharmaceutical company. The R&D argument doesn't hold water at all anymore when the marketing budget of a pharmaceutical company oustrips theur R&D budget because they have to convince everyone that weekly Prozac is now the way to go since the old kind is no longer protected by patent.
But, this may all be moot since the dollar amounts are low enough that pursuing these claims in court will be too expensive, unless you tried to take them to small claims court. And then you would have a hell of a time establishing jurisdiction over UGO. Which leads us to a solution already proposed by some postings, a class action. While each individual claim is too small to attract the attention of a lawyer operating on contingency fees, in the aggregate, that may be a different story.
So figure out if you can rally typically insular geeks together for a class action if you care enough and dig your heels in if you are prepared to demolish whaterver relationship you have with UGO to collect on the past 2 months. Who knows, maybe you can use the money you get in settlement for capital and construct a similar network with your co0litigants and avoid problems like this in the future. Good luck.
Oh, and by the way, I believe the case Erasmus Darwin is referring to is Hamer v. Sidway, an old case from the 1800's. And the court held for the nephew, sonce forgoing a legal right, in this case the right to somke, drink and gamble, was sufficient consideration to create a binding contract. Don't take legal advice from someone who is not a lawyer, or at least in law shool ;-)