I don't think most people would agree with such a radical change.
Edit: even saas would be a problem.. Since a competitor to Amazon aws could call themselves amazonsaws.com, and use amazons logo etc (for ex)
Sure, the anti-slavery faction of the Republican party were called the "Radical Republicans" for a reason. I'm perfectly OK being the only person on earth that believes something.
Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus.
As another commenter mentioned, if you want to prove you are the producer of a good/service, you can find invent some way to do that, but it's on you.
Or some startup could invent a verification method and sell it (as a service) ..
When Pfizer sells a product to a distributor, said distributor would require Pfizer to send a tiny transaction to their address.
Known Pfizer address associated with product -> Distributor's address
As part of the purchase process, the retail shop would in turn require the distributor to send a transaction from said address to their address so that they can in turn prove authenticity to their customers and so on. A valid transaction should spend the full amount of the seller's address (e.g. 1 satoshi) so that there is only one possible path from Pfizer's address to the final owner of the product.
Known Pfizer address associated with product -> Distributor's address -> Retailer's address
One possible issue with this scheme is that it would still allow an hypothetical scammer to produce a valid transaction (assuming they previously bought the authentic product) and sell a fake product. However, there would be little economic incentive to do so given that their authentic product would now be valued as a fake (since they would have "lost" the ability to prove its authenticity).
Essentially, it would let a scammer buy an authentic product for the price of a fake. Not bad, but it doesn't scale well unless your goal is to acquire a bunch of authentic products for personal use with no intention of reselling. In other words, individual sellers (e.g. on Craigslist) might do it but it wouldn't be practical at a business level.
PS: I think I might just have described "colored coins" in a convoluted way.
> IP's time (if there ever was one) is over. There is no benefit for real inventors and artists anymore, merely for mega corporations to use the levers of government to maximize their profits at the expense of humanity and freedom. Nothing "intellectual" should be property.
> I'm not against corporations or even mega corporations. I think they'd do better for themselves (and their users, more importantly) if they didn't waste years and $billions battling each other and bullying startups and individuals over IP. Instead, they should just focus of making better things.
> [Quotation]
This sounds like a noble rallying cry but is ultimately misguided. How does this system reconcile with the incentive structures inherent in pharmaceutical research and drug design?
Pharma "development" might be done by academics who get bought out by big pharma after their discovery, or it might be done originally by big pharma. Should pharma IP be protected so they can inflate prices to pad the bank accounts of the inventors even though they were operating in academia at the time of invention?
Pharma costs involve (a) cost to discover a drug, (b) cost to do drug trials, including all bureaucratic red tape in getting the drug approved, and (c) advertising and marketing (both to prospective patients and to the medical establishment). From what I've read, advertising costs exceed R&D. Surely, IP monopoly pricing should not be able to pass along arbitrary marketing costs.
Some drugs are prescribed for serious health problems, some drugs are prescribed and taken on a more voluntary basis, and there's a gray area in between. Should IP owners be able to set arbitrary profit margins for drugs for more serious health problems? Who decides what's serious?
The incentives for much of the pharma industry are all wrong: they market to doctors and potential end-users, even though end users are rarely capable of evaluating drugs, and even though doctors are influenced by marketing directed at them. This isn't so much a cost issue (other than advertising costs, above) but rather a public health issue. Some drugs might not be in the public's interest at all, even while being recommended by doctors, and paid for at inflated prices by patients and insurance companies.
There are so many complications, I'm in favor of dealing with pharma IP separately.
The cost is in the red tape, and doing the clinical trials to satisfy regulations. I agree, we'd have to get rid of that.
But treating it as a special case ensures that we'll just put off the subject indefinitely.
IP corrupts everything it touches. Get rid of it, and we'll eliminate the problem at the source.
The pharma companies would lose the ability to patent a drug.. which means they would keep it a tradesecret instead. So generic may or may not be able to be produced.
Second: without trademarks, pharma companies could invent Prilosec... and I (and anyone else) could sell a sugar pill named Prilosec. Or rat poison named Prilosec.. or any number of other items named Prilosec.
This is not a result that is in anyones favor.
Furthermore, I would consider tradesecrets a form of IP so, if we are considering a scenario in which IP were abolished, tradesecrets would be abolished too in the sense that they would be afforded no legal protections. True, a formula or process could still be kept secret, but without protection for that secrecy it seems unlikely that real innovations would remain secret for long and market competition would increase as a result.
I spoke of the problems that abolishing pharmaceutical IP would cause in fundamental scientific research in my other comments on the thread.
I could speak to the specific problems it would cause with respect to '[much better medicine] and '[medical treatments without ip], but I think those concepts are second order to the scientific research retardation problem.
Please see my other two comments in the thread and let me know what you think:
Reason I ask is not to ad-hominem you, just to see which arguments I should focus on.
Here are the basics though:
1. Compound discovery happens mostly in academic research labs prior to patenting. This is published in journals (paid, but "open source").
2. Wrt general scientific research, science has always been fine without patents: Einstein, Feynman and Co don't need financial incentive to do their best work, it's just what they do.
3. The role of pharmaceutical companies is fairly limited to clinical research, getting over regulatory hurdles and marketing. In a given year approx 100k potentially useful compounds will be discovered, but only a couple are approved by the FDA.
Let me know what you'd like to argue about..
> 3. The role of pharmaceutical companies is fairly limited to clinical research, getting over regulatory hurdles and marketing. In a given year approx 100k potentially useful compounds will be discovered, but only a couple are approved by the FDA.
This glosses over almost the entire drug discovery process, which is a crucially important and nuanced process that yields new fundamental science. The positive scientific externalities of clinical trials are unambiguously a good thing.
You are correct that much compound discovery happens in academic settings (though it does happen commercially as well.)
Discovering the basic compound chemistry is just the first step. It must pass through a series of critical scientific assessments to see if the compound yields statistically significant desired biological effects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_of_clinical_research
This process is the experimental phase of drug discovery. It involves hundreds to thousands of different researchers, participants, institutions, and explicit organizational dynamics. The cost must be borne and there must be incentive to bear the cost. My entire argument is that the patent system enables this incentive structure.
> Wrt general scientific research, science has always been fine without patents: Einstein, Feynman and Co don't need financial incentive to do their best work, it's just what they do.
This point speaks to a more abstract point that is useful to consider, not only in the pharmaceutical context, but in the context of what makes science: science.
You are correct that fundamental theoretical science has always been fine without patents. The men and women who output some of our species' most beautiful interpretations of nature are rarely motivated by money. (I feel like that aspect of your argument was a bit of a non sequitur, I think all scientists are motivated by intrinsic knowledge, not money. I'm uncomfortable with my perception that you were implying that pharmaceutical scientists are somehow distinct from the examples you provided. Apologies if I misunderstood.)
The distinction between the pharmaceutical industry and the fundamental work of Enstein, Feynman et al. is that the drug discovery process involves two major expressions of scientific thought: theoretical and experimental. In this case, the basic compound discovery would be an expression of theoretical science (and experimental work), which must in turn be validated by more experimental science: the clinical trial phases.
In your example, it is true that Einstein, Feynman et al. did not need financial incentive to make immeasurable contributions to collective Good. They were doing priceless theoretical work, for what they are primarily known for. But (un)/fortunately, we need to do experimental science as well. Sadly, this cannot be done for free.
To continue with the physics analogy, The Higgs boson was theorized "without financial incentive" prior to its experimental validation. Of course, the experimental validation cost billions of dollars and the output of one of the greatest feats of human engineering: the Large Hadron Collider.
In this case, it was incredibly "expensive" (arguably, cost should be no object) to do this experimental validation. The cost was borne by government funding, ostensibly to increase the sum total of Knowledge.
Of course, resources are limited. The government cannot fund all basic research. We have aligned market machinery to incentivize pharmaceutical companies to fund the incredibly "expensive" cost of drug discovery experimental validation. For better or worse.
---------------------------
The premises to my argument:
- experimental validation (the lion's share of the drug discovery process) is necessary
- this process is expensive in terms of financial burden and opportunity cost
- despite our intrinsic desire to do all research, we must allocate our resources accordingly
- market actors in a (mostly) free market seek to maximize their utility
- a market actor (in a market with no property rights) presented with the choice of:
(a) spend X-Large sum -> manufacture + sell drug
or
(b) wait until other market actor spends X-Large sum -> manufacture + sell drug (at essentially zero input cost)
... can rationally wait to choose (b).
My argument:
- The pharmaceutical patent system provides the economic machinery necessary to incentivize private corporations to fund drug discovery experimental validation.
The point of mutual confusion or "the basics" as you put it:
The drug discovery process doesn't yield any meaningful scientific output, and is essentially an exercise in regulatory avoidance and marketing.
I disagree with "the basics" that you laid out.
I do want to say something explicitly: you've been very respectful and considerate and I really appreciate that. That's an increasingly rare thing on Hacker News.
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfi...
I just came across it, and it makes a pretty damning indictment of my premise that patent incentives enable advancement in experimental science in the pharmaceutical industry. To be clear, pharmaceutical companies do play a crucial role in the drug discovery process, clinical trials do provide positive scientific externalities, but my assumption that patent protection is a necessary catalyst for risk taking appears to be incorrect (if you take seriously the very compelling case the authors make in the linked book chapters.) My argument is flawed. Elaborated in full here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7499328
I still kind of like my part in this comment about distinguishing experimental science and theoretical science. Otherwise, I'm walking home with my tail between my legs.
> I do want to say something explicitly: you've been very respectful and considerate and I really appreciate that. That's an increasingly rare thing on Hacker News.
I hope that would've been expected :)
I think you make very valid points regarding the potential organizational benefits of IP for large scale endeavors. Actually one of the core arguments I make against my own anti-IP position is whether a large-scale hollywood production would be possible without copyright.
I.e. Much like Mozart or Beethoven who produced wonderful music without IP protection, I'm fairly sure a Spielberg or Scorsese would push the boundaries of their art whether or not they could earn hundreds of millions (but as long as they'd get enough to live and prosper). Same could be said of the great actors and musicians.
The best scientists & engineers are no different than the best artists or athletes. They do what they do, because this is what they are interested in.
I even think this is true for the greatest startup founders. Though they end up quite wealthy, I doubt this is what wakes them up, and what they dream about.
Certainly it would be true of pharmaceutical scientists as well.
The real question (which is analogous to what you brought up) is whether there would be sufficient resources to pay the required staff, marketers, and other non-creatives to put the greatest films together.
I don't know, frankly. I suspect at the high end, it would happen. My hunch is that the vast majority of money due only to IP goes to lawyers and operational business executives, not the creative geniuses.
I also suspect that without these massive giant corporations, and the onerous FDA regulations, we'd have hundreds of smaller, more innovative firms. Yes there would be more risk, but I think overall outcomes would be better because orders of magnitude more solutions would be brought to the marketplace and the best would rise to the top.
But I'd oppose IP regardless. My fundamental opposition to IP is not practical, but ideological. I just can't square it with the absolute freedom of speech that I believe in (and believe is more important than anything else). I do simultaneously believe that greater freedom bodes well for prosperity, but that's not why I support greater freedom.
I'm kind of tired, you'll probably be able to poke more than a few holes in what I wrote .. if so, I'll answer tomorrow. Cheers.
It's better to deal with the harsh reality of peaceful commerce than it is to continually mold an economy with abysmal, suppressive, artificial constraints. Such laws are overwhelmingly wielded by large corporations: groups of protected people who afford patent war chests, suck up the relatively small patents "of the little guy," who gladly suffer constraints, and whose dominion grows parasitically with every law they bend in their direction.
The answer for "incentivizing" progress has no clear path. But I know it should lie elsewhere from this current one, if we're to ever set our courses ethically. It must consist of peace. Peace means not using violence and not caging people just to mold corporate will. Incentives exist on one side. Many people are naturally driven to learn, research, create, and discover.
On the other side, that doesn't solve the economic drivers that act as a backbone. Obviously, that's where your question is focused. Given less control by corporations, I imagine time-to-market, mover advantage, and trade recognition would still be enough to create a very fertile economy. It would hardly lack in the catalysts that dive manufacturing and profit-based prospects and motives. I'd argue that it would increase those conditions beyond just the net-health increase of market access. The major difference would be an economy that becomes more decentralized with fewer mega-corporations and more p2p trade. The pace of drug design would not necessarily slow. Motives and rewards behind drug design would nevertheless change and certain aspects of that would slow.
I'm more sympathetic to trademark IP. Trademarks were a helpful stopgap against fraud in the evolution of the US economy. Yet, trademarks as we know them today could be logically disbanded in the future if the means which which to prove identities and dates of creation become more solidified into everyday life. Certain aspects of enforcement would probably linger on for consumer protection (e.g. selling exact, branded replicas of a product would be prohibited in areas where true confusion is likely to occur). I believe most people want to reward people and businesses who take chances, act transparently, and serve quality products and services, the more that information becomes readily flowing. Likewise, I believe most people want to disfavor the people who act fraudulently (presenting the works of others as their own).
Ultimately, I'd rather society cope with the human potential that occurs without the limitations of patents, rather than society coping with the human potential that occurs with the limitations of patents. This philosophy may or may not lead to more net gains superficially. However, I think it leads to more gains rationally and ethically.
> Ultimately, I'd rather society cope with the human potential that occurs without the limitations of patents, rather than society coping with the human potential that occurs with the limitations of patents.
The use of patents in pharmaceutical research enhances human potential. Perhaps that is not the case in other industries, but that was not what I was talking about.
The pharmaceutical patent system creates an incentive structure such that companies see it as rational to invest billions of dollars over the course of a decade or more, with the expectation that they will enjoy a period of time after completion (funding, research, approval, manufacturing) where they can enjoy a return on their investment.
Without patent protection, when the research comes to fruition- all manufacturers can produce the drug at essentially zero cost (the actual industrial/manufacturing aspect of cost is a trivial fraction of total cost). Since the barriers to entry are so low, the product can be commoditized and the researcher's profit will be cannibalized.
> Given less control by corporations, I imagine time-to-market, mover advantage, and trade recognition would still be enough to create a very fertile economy.
This market is enabled by patent protection, not hindered by it. Without patent protection the pharmaceutical industry would be left with a free rider problem of disastrous proportions, risk aversion would sky rocket, and research will drift towards a race to the towards the bottom.
There is a more insidious consequence as well. No patent protection will decrease humanity's net scientific knowledge. Or at least massively retard its growth.
Without patents, companies are forced to rely on trade secrets. Secret formulas. Proprietary lock downs into perpetuity. There are no expiration dates on trade secrets. There is no scientific knowledge to be built on a foundation of trade secrets. This is almost like a bizzaro version of the software patent world-- where patents increase human knowledge, or at least put a down payment on it (relative to the alternative).
> This market is enabled by patent protection, not hindered by it. ...
We disagree. I and many others do not support patents nor business-as-usual. It's pretty simple. I don't wake up in the morning and think about how I can continue to best serve the enrichment of particular pharmaceutical companies.
What's insidious is clear. The insidious component to me in this whole equation is the one where people are led into a rather unquestioning belief that human potential -- be it in medical science and wherever -- would not exist or progress if it weren't for a framework that allows temporary market dominion of capital (and the monopolies that arise from this). It's nonsense. You've stated broad sweeping claims though. These claims very much do beg questions -- far more, to me, than any questions that result out of society having to cope in the absence of (punitive, violent) market constraints. My own presumption is in believing that, while answers that bridge a transition aren't definitive, at least the path should strive toward an ethical horizon. Personally, to me, a republic that uses collective force to inhibit [people from researching, selling, and building upon concepts and therapies] -- a society with patents -- is a shining example of insidious, unethical, corrupt behavior. The SCOTUS had a tiny bit of sense to revoke some of the patents on genes, at least, if we're to talk baby steps.
I responded to another comment in a little more detail:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7498742
Maybe you'd like to take a look.
I'm not trying to make a statist or anti-statist argument (apologies if I am putting ideologies in your mouth.)
My entire point is that this is the best system that we have, given all the other alternatives. Experimental validation is incredibly expensive, and it really boils down to whether or not you think that private companies will risk billions of dollars in time and opportunity cost when other parties can rationally choose to "strike last" or "invest last." It's more of a game theory argument than a political one.
It's certainly possible that there are solutions to this that don't involve patents. We just haven't thought of one yet. Patents have all kinds of other undesirable baggage that people want to get rid of. If we come up with a better system, then we'll do it.
In order for our drug discovery process to continue if we abolish patents tomorrow, the following has to be true:
Pharmaceutical companies will still find it rational to stake money on clinical trials that may or may not yield the results necessary to ethically bring the drug to market. And they must still find it rational to do this while knowing that another rational company can just wait to hear the results of the clinical trial and just sell the drug effectively for free.
If you disagree with that paragraph, and more specifically, with what I said in the comment I linked, I would like to hear what you have to say.
I am open minded and I'm a little bit hurt that you are casting me off as having an unquestioning belief in any system, let alone one that I think is just barely good enough given the alternatives.
Elaborated in full here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7499328
> Pharmaceutical companies will still find it rational to stake money on clinical trials that may or may not yield the results necessary to ethically bring the drug to market. And they must still find it rational to do this while knowing that another rational company can just wait to hear the results of the clinical trial and just sell the drug effectively for free.
My position starts with peace. It sounds cliche. But peace as a groundwork for a more natural market doesn't need to worry or concern itself over whether PharmaABC Co. will pull in however many more $x billions beyond its $y billion in marketing/propaganda costs (resulting from the comparative ease they had in securing monopoly rights by buying and submitting new patents). What peace and a more natural market must concern itself with is protecting people and entities from other people and entities who attempt to wage involuntary relationships (e.g. mafia, gangs, businesses, government itself: especially institutions with three-letter acronyms). Under more peace and peaceful government, that which will follow may follow.
I agree with your paragraph's statements.
Pharmaceuticals would not go away. Yet still there would be vast amounts of money to be made. The distribution of that money would be more grounded though. Less corporate control would be a huge boom to scientific exploration. This holds true for any industry that becomes more accessible to people: hardware, computing, food. The upsides are always rational and ethically superior to their alternatives. 3D printing my own parts or brewing my own coffee will hurt the bottom line of certain interests. However, it will only expand the bottom lines of more people who can come to the table as a result of the mere ability to now enter a market. They matter too. Meanwhile, cafes of the world open their doors, even as Starbucks takes over block after block. Different wants create peacefully coexisting supplies.
If you want to understand my view, allow me to use this example. Pretend coffee is new. Pretend Starbucks doesn't exist. Pretend coffee plants came as a result of research, ideas, or derivations of nature. A world with patents in general is -- to me -- akin to a world where Starbucks could patent coffee. Or perhaps a capital group buys those patents to start a Starbucks and license them to only big players who have the capital. Society is at the mercy of Starbucks or the whims of a few. Starbucks can then (legally) prevent other people and businesses from growing, selling, and distributing coffee. Don't like their particular flavor? Don't like their company? Don't like the way they do business and source their goods? Tough luck. If it wasn't enough to build an empire on a service and product alone, they can now at least build an empire off of corporatism. Oh, and they'll continue to call the shots for another 6-20 years. And for what? Really, for what? So that they can amass themselves on the backs of a society's military/police/prison network (i.e. the institutions that ultimately back their corporate law)? So that they can prey upon high demand, as a taste for coffee quickly develops, without having to answer to the grounding forces of the absence of monopoly status? So that they will take the initial "risk" of being first to market? Any minor positives become unseen to the ignorance and imbalance this breeds. Consider that my vision of a living 'coffee nightmare.' :)
Just because something would no longer be patentable doesn't mean the constructs of society wouldn't form to support people and businesses discovering medical breakthroughs (or coffee). I mentioned earlier that I believe a society as this is even today -- of mostly 'good' people -- would mostly love and want to reward the ones who bear good and honest fruit for society. I also believe this path would have cyclical effects. It's that echo chamber again: learning that there are ways to conduct business without the luxury of dominance. There are many arguments to be made that over time this itself would increase the flow of commerce between people and also increase the re-flow of capital into more avenues of development and research. Granted, my words are also predicated on people having increased access to information about the entities with which they engage.
It's smart of you to be cautious.
It's wise of you to be concerned, not wanting to potentially rip the carpet out from under people who rely on potential drugs for peculiar and rare diseases. It's understandable to have notions deeply rooted in us through surroundings, such as fearing that a world without patents (what I like to call a more natural world) might mean a world where certain companies have no inclination to conduct science if they fear not obtaining their pot of gold. I respect and share your concern. But I'm also here to suggest that there's more to life than this. There's more to life than supporting something fundamentally corrupt that stems from fear. If other markets are any indication, and I believe they are, then for every company that would give up over no longer being able to claim patents -- that for every one of those types -- there are many more people and businesses on the sidelines who are eager to jump at the chance to fill voids and then some.
Yes, this would be with explicit understanding that it would probably result in less money for them and that the only dominance they achieve is inescapably up to them -- and up to a society that, under these freer conditions, I believe, would begin to become more prone to recognizing the efforts of those who take those risks (both recognition in fame and monetarily). You might consider this possibility. You might consider that nothing in life: no thought, no object, no idea, no system of logic, was born into this world yearning to be backed by violence. Only (some) individuals who 'birth' ideas call for backing them through violence. Do we want to enrich this mindset or stand for something better? The greatest tangibles and intangibles in life always seem to be born out of humanity's compulsion for logic and creativity. Ideas yearn to be free. The stuff we see around us is predominantly in spite of patents, not as a result of patents. But that's my opinion. Exciting times would be ahead for any area of science where people have increased access and needn't fear lawsuits and company death from patent holders. Unfortunately, those areas are few and unpredictable. The depth to which patents have sunk means one must have a great deal of legal backing (money) merely to venture a foot into an ocean of exploration. You might consider this. That's all I ask.
IP's time (if there ever was one) is over. There is no benefit for real inventors and artists anymore, merely for mega corporations to use the levers of government to maximize their profits at the expense of humanity and freedom. Nothing "intellectual" should be property.
I'm not against corporations or even mega corporations. I think they'd do better for themselves (and their users, more importantly) if they didn't waste years and $billions battling each other and bullying startups and individuals over IP. Instead, they should just focus of making better things.
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. - Thomas Jefferson