Comment by dickbasedregex | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dickbasedregex | Hacker News Reader

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Why can't patents have a duration? If you're the first to come up with an idea, you get 5 years head start before competitors can use your patent for their own ends. If you never have the resources to materialize your idea or can't find a seat in the market, that's unfortunate but oh well. We can't keep allowing battery technology to be held back because Exxon bought up all the patents years ago.

I don't believe patents, as they are, are doing very much toward their original goal. Right now, and perhaps this is my frustrated cynicism here, they just look like one more method for those with money to bully those without.

Drugs fall into a problematic territory here. I don't know enough about big pharma to have an informed conversation but I feel like there are other options available to us. Pharma R&D is what is always, always, always trotted out as a defense for our absurd patent system. The whole world has to get shafted with a bad system because one industry can't figure out another way?

>Why can't patents have a duration?

They do.

A big part of the high price of drugs is that the pharmaceutical companies have essentially a mad dash to recoup the (m/b)illions of dollars spent on R&D and clinical trials. Patent process has to begin once the target is discovered (e.g. assayed). Now you have to do further assays (0.5-1y), non-clinical safety studies (0.5-2y), route scouting and scale up (a few months), several years of clinical trials, then scale up the process to manufacturing. You've just burned 5-8 years of your patent protection. You have 15 years or less to recoup the cost of not only this drug, but all others that failed to get through the pipeline (which can be as much as 5-to-1).

Once it goes off patent, 80% of the sales of brand name can vanish [1]. Getting a generic approved is a fraction of the time and cost as getting the original through the pipeline. It's like P vs NP, since the FDA approval means publishing pretty much a how-to guide (synthesis route) and much of the safety data. You just have to demonstrate "our stuff is the same as the proven stuff".

I've long been a proponent of "15 years from FDA approval" - this gives a reliable, predictable cushion, without having to predict clinical failure rates. More time can be spent on safety studies (NCSS) and less costly Phase I and II trials, ideally leading to safer and more effective drugs. There is still pressure to move quick, because as soon as the clinical trials start, other companies have access to the leads you are looking at, and can simulate the structure and look for similar leads.

[1]https://www.forbes.com/2002/05/02/0502patents.html

I'm not opposed to a different system for different industries.

I'm just saying that, for example, I don't think we would've discovered a hep-c drug without the incentive of exclusive rights to sell the drug. I think the individual researchers are probably motivated by their desire to help people, but corporations don't run on altruism.

It would be nice if the tools and means of production were owned by the individual researchers, then.

So you would be a proponent of all drug companies being employee-owned partnerships?

Where does the money come from for large capital expenditures like a research facility or production line?

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