Sure. Sometimes the scheme is introducing a new miracle tech to the masses of poor people and it benefits them. However some additional money beyond the cost of the tech is taken from them in return.

Other times the scheme is just cheating people or restricting their access to hoarded limited resource.

The miracle drug is a good example. Sure everyone benefits if it is not expensive. Take the Covid vaccines for example, there are many locations (e.g. In India) that could produce vaccines, however the companies (and the Western countries) do not want to open up the patents, even though we would all (even us in the 1st world) benefit, because eliminating covid as quick as possible would reduce the chance of mutations.

A lot of people seem to think that Bill Gates' influence is largely responsible for the Oxford vaccine being patent-encumbered.

A lot of people believe Q-anon. This is such a shitty, drive by way of asserting something. Do you believe it? If so then make the case, but the way you've dropped this steamy innuendo here without even taking a position on it yourself contributes less than nothing to the discussion.

I haven't looked into it enough; I just remember Cory Doctorow talking about it and thought it was relevant. https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#g... (citing https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine...).

The “a lot” came from the search results for “gates oxford covid patent” (I'd've expected people arguing against it if there was contention in opinion – this isn't the same as “it's fact”), though further investigation (the thing I didn't do; sorry) reveals that I only found two other articles: https://criticallegalthinking.com/2021/02/09/patent-capital-... and https://criticallegalthinking.com/2021/02/09/patent-capital-... the rest of the results are mirrors.

You're right that it's a rubbish thing to write; I'll put more effort into comments in future.

How about this source:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2021/02/...

MS. GATES: Well, we, along with many other partners, supported Oxford in saying what really needs to have happened there, they had incredible science, but they had never brought a vaccine to market. And so, they needed to partner with a pharmaceutical company who had expertise bringing a vaccine to market. And so, it was us and many partners that said that's a partnership that ought to happen. Ultimately, Oxford made that decision.

I can't imagine why. Maybe be because Melinda Gates said it herself that they advised Oxford to find strong commercial partner for their vaccine instead not patenting it?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2021/02/...