News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Congress: Stop Trying to Limit EFF’s Ability to Challenge Patents. Parent comment

Re:Congress: Stop Trying to Limit EFF’s Ability to Challenge... by rhino369 on Friday April 24, 2015 @02:16PM (#9435074)
Pharmaceuticals are the classic example of why patents are necessary. Billions of R&D to develop a product that can be produced by a competitor for pennies.

But things like complex circuits would see drastic reduction in R&D if competitors could just make a copy.

You'd save money on litigation, but it's not that much considering the size of the industries at play.

And you'd probably see worse products after the short term.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Congress: Stop Trying to Limit EFF’s Ability to Challenge... by chongli on Friday April 24, 2015 @05:43PM (#9436187)
Pharmaceuticals are the classic example of why patents are necessary. Billions of R&D to develop a product that can be produced by a competitor for pennies.

If you took more than a cursory glance at the pharmaceutical industry, you'd see this oft-repeated claim is bullshit. Pharmaceutical companies spend billions on marketing (as well as lobbying politicians and doctors) and attempting to re-patent old drugs as their patents expire. They spend very little on blue sky, highly innovative drug development. That is mainly the province of publicly funded research labs and universities.

The one thing pharmaceutical companies actually do is cover the high cost of clinical trials. I see no reason we couldn't replace that with a publicly funded mechanism, do you?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Congress: Stop Trying to Limit EFF’s Ability to Challenge... by bcg1 on Friday April 24, 2015 @02:46PM (#9435292)
Industry-specific concerns like that could easily be addressed privately by trade associations that have incentive to prevent the sort of mutually assured destruction that you describe.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Congress: Stop Trying to Limit EFF’s Ability to Challenge... by rhino369 on Friday April 24, 2015 @02:52PM (#9435328)
You mean by creating an agreement to not compete? That is illegal.

It effects all industries that have R&D, those are just good examples.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Congress: Stop Trying to Limit EFF’s Ability to Challenge... by Karunamon on Friday April 24, 2015 @05:37PM (#9436164)
We're discussing overhauls to the legal system - the fact that it's illegal now doesn't enter into it.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Congress: Stop Trying to Limit EFF’s Ability to Challenge... by rhino369 on Friday April 24, 2015 @05:42PM (#9436181)
I'll put it another way, it would be stupid to let entire industries write their own non-competition agreements. That is monopolist behavior. Unless the repeal of the Patent Act coincides with the repeal of the Sherman Act, it would be illegal still.
[ Parent | on HN ]