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Comment by dave_sullivan | Hacker News Reader

> Why is it not possible for patents to recognize multiple, independent sources of innovation and to award intellectual ownership of the ideas to all deserving parties?

Why is a temporary monopoly even necessary here? I've written about this before, but every time I see "patents" mentioned anywhere, I find myself thinking "Do we need this system?"

I asked on HN a while back for good examples of the patent system working as it should. The examples I got back were the Super Soaker guy and a sprinkler system someone's uncle invented -- but that's such peanuts compared to what would be possible if money fighting this case were spent on CRISPR researchers collaborating across organizations instead.

The arguments in defense of patents are so weak and yet so vehement. Delaying the cure for cancer is not a fair exchange for the Super Soaker guy getting rich from artificial scarcity in a child's toy category.

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> Why is a temporary monopoly even necessary here? I've written about this before, but every time I see "patents" mentioned anywhere, I find myself thinking "Do we need this system?"

In biotech and medtech no one will invest in your startup, even at the angel level, unless you have a sound IP strategy that includes patents or a very well-considered trade secret plan. The time from discovery to translation and commercialization is long, risky, expensive, and too difficult to predict to permit investment without some sort of period of exclusivity. If someone can clone a product as soon as it is developed and on the market, how could a company recoup development costs?

I've had this conversation before (not with you, but re: this argument) and I think you're right, it's hard to make certain areas of biotech work without having the ability to recoup costs (today handled with a temporary monopoly on the product, keeping gross margins very high).

One answer is "if you abolish patents a lot of science research will have to come from privately or publicly funded research" but this is pretty extreme and would be a tectonic shift in the biotech industry.

I'm not advocating an extreme solution like abolishing patents. But I think the pendulum needs to shift very hard in the other direction re: patents in general. Like, how about not having one court in Texas decide it all? Or "you have to sell the product to keep the patent and you can't just pretend to sell it". Or you can't patent software unless there's a really really good reason (like recouping huge development losses)

I feel like this only underscores the ethical problems of for-profit medicine. The argument, if I understand correctly, is essentially that there's no other way to fund large innovations in medical treatment in a free market than to have a patent system or some kind of artificial exclusivity. To me, this doesn't answer the question of what you're supposed to say to a dying person who can't afford to save their own life when a drug company unfairly sets their prices too high.

When Feng Zhang spoke at my school, it seemed that the use of patents was to prevent unethical modification of human embryos, but that hasn't seemed to deter scientists in countries where IP is not recognized (China).

If that's a genuine ethical issue then patents would be woefully inadequate at preventing it, since they would only provide a time-limited block. To actually fix things you'd need actual regulation, at which point the patent goes back to being bad.

What do you see as the benefits of having a patent system?

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