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TechDirt reports
[...] The past few USPTO directors had been cut from the "more patents is always a good thing" mold, whereas Lee actually recognized that bad patents harmed innovation. And even though the last time the Patent Office got concerned about bad patents it allowed the patent approval backlog to fill up, under Lee the backlog has reached its lowest point in a decade.[paywall]
[...] For all the craziness going on in the government right now, having competent leadership at the USPTO would be one less thing to worry about. But... now it's being reported that Lee has suddenly resigned and sent a goodbye email to staff. That's bad news on the patent front.
Of course, it may be ages before any new director is appointed. As I type this, of the 559 key positions requiring Senate confirmation, Trump hasn't even named a nominee for 431 of them. [...] Adding the new USPTO director to that pile may mean no new USPTO director for.... who the hell knows how long.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:25PM (58 children)
Nobody.
Patents should be done away with.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:31PM (56 children)
So you wouldn't mind if the pharma industry collapsed overnight, right?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:45PM (25 children)
That wouldn't happen and you know it. You just made that up.
Sure. Pfizer might have to earn its money in the marketplace instead of relying on corporate welfare. And Johnson & Johnson would have to keep on manufacturing the inexpensive old, reliable, problem-free hernia mesh and stop making overly marked-up death products they sell now.
But that would mean that the Big Pharma CEOs may have to forego the platinum plated Gulfstreams and settle for the gold plated ones. And we can't have that now, can we?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:55PM (24 children)
Yeah... you do realise patents are how they make money, right?
Without patents to protect new drugs, all companies are allowed to manufacture all drugs (cloning drugs isn't hard), and whoever is stupid enough to invest in research gets no benefit from doing so.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:57PM (1 child)
Then try declaring a holiday on for-profit health care research in the first place.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:59PM
Have you completely forgotten that the invention of new drugs is a good thing?
No more drug patents would mean no more for-profit drug research, which would pretty much mean no more drug research.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:20PM (11 children)
You mean like the NIH that invests in the research while big pharma invests in advertising. Well, also clinical trials, which aren't cheap. But still. Research? Really? I mean basic research on drugs, not on how to make them more addictive, or package them, determine minimum effective doses, etc.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:30PM (8 children)
Sure, there are perverse incentives, and big pharma misbehaves all the damn time. More than just about any other industry. The fact remains: kill their incentive to do research, and you kill for-profit research. Do that, and you've just about killed drugs research completely in your country. (Which, considering we're talking about the USA, is a big deal.)
Yes. Obviously. Where exactly do you think new drugs come from?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:43PM (7 children)
Which is worse?
1. Can't get a drug because it is unaffordable
2. Can't get a drug because it was not developed
Suffer either way.
I remain unconvinced that the extreme and rapid rise of drug prices reflects the cost of research.
Why do people in neighboring countries get the exact same drug for much less?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:57PM (5 children)
Reminder: patents expire. That's central to the whole market model. Without patents, the drugs would simply never have been discovered in the first place. So no, your two options aren't even close to equivalent.
They don't. Good thing I never said they did. The drugs companies are exploitative. They charge what they can and spend much of their money on advertising, much of that on the sort of advertising that essentially every country but the USA has made illegal (i.e. advertising directly to potential patients).
My point remains: without patents, the drugs would never have been discovered. This is a knock-down argument. All your points are just detail.
I imagine it's something to do with market failure in the USA, and possibly regulatory capture of the FDA. Few countries ignore drug patents though. (But it does happen.)
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:09PM (1 child)
I have one name for you:
Turing Pharmaceuticals
If you don't remember, then try this name:
Martin Shkreli
Also: epipens.
The drugs they are selling are off-patent, but the companies are still able to make monopoly profits from them.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:42PM
The parent did not say that companies could not make profits off of generics.
There is generic epinephrine available, but the EpiPen brand has convinced people that it is worth paying a premium for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @08:16PM (2 children)
One word: USSR. They did discover some number of drugs there, all without anything resembling USA-style patents.
Yeah. Also known as "a blatant lie".
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:28AM (1 child)
We're discussing market forces' impact on for-profit drugs-research, and you mention the USSR? Really?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:21PM
Interesting fight here. It's like half strawman on one side against half bailey-vs-motte on the other.
Carry on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:49PM
With limited resources, there will always be some patients that will not have access. Patents provide a limited-time monopoly to the party responsible for the discovery in order to give them a chance to overcome their investment costs (including their failed drug programs) and turn a profit (market incentive to develop new medicine) before their discovery is available for all to exploit (competitive market forcing a price drop). Suffering from #1 should be temporary (unless you can afford the treatments), while suffering from #2 would be permanent.
You are right to remain unconvinced because drug prices are not reflecting the cost of research alone. The companies are setting their prices as high as the market will bear - this is one of the reasons why prices are lower on non-US markets and why HMOs pay different rates. Generic drug prices will reflect the prices competitors are willing to sell the drugs for (plus how much their marketing departments can convince people to pay a premium for).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:31PM (1 child)
The NIH supports a lot of basic science, but the vast majority of drugs are discovered by pharmaceutical companies.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/02/02/drugs-purely-from-academia [sciencemag.org]
http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v9/n11/abs/nrd3251.html [nature.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:48PM
Thanks
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:13PM (6 children)
How exactly are the drug company profits funding research at taxpayer supported universities?
Or is it like when I was getting my comp sci degree where they bring in a bunch of companies and make you pay thousands of dollars to spend six months writing code for a private corporation after which they require you to transfer to the company for free all rights and ownership of that code?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:25PM (5 children)
What? Pharma companies invest in research. I'm not talking about the small amount of drugs research that's funded by the government.
Nope.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:44PM (4 children)
Most of the actual research is financed by government through agencies like the NIH and DARPA, among others. After government research identifies potentially useful drugs, THEN the pharma companies step in and finance the costs to get it approved. That's not research, it's development. The research part is mostly done with public funds.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK50972/ [nih.gov]
So yeah it sounds exactly like that comp sci program...the university students get everything started for the private corporations free of charge, then once the corporations determine that the publicly funded research has identified something profitable, they step in to take those profits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @09:26PM (3 children)
Academic drug discoveries from 1998-2007:
and
A lot of research is funded through government grants, but pharmaceutical companies seem to be responsible for the majority of drugs. Also, many companies do not trust the reliability of academic research enough due to the reproducibility problems associated with it.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/02/02/drugs-purely-from-academia [sciencemag.org]
http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v9/n11/abs/nrd3251.html [nature.com]
http://www.nature.com/news/biotech-giant-publishes-failures-to-confirm-high-profile-science-1.19269 [nature.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:09AM (2 children)
I wonder though how those numbers would look if you removed all the minor modifications of existing drug in order to get fresh patent protection...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:54AM (1 child)
Those numbers are for new molecular entities (not different formulations). In terms of close similarities with existing drugs, Dr. Lowe points out that a substantial portion of the academic discoveries fall under this category.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday June 10 2017, @01:08PM
My understanding is a substantial portion of all new drugs fall into that category - and most offer no new benefits beyond fresh patentability.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @06:56PM
No. Patents are how they protect their revenue stream. But unless they are selling the patents, patents do not make them any money.
That might sound like an meaningless distinction, but it is in fact HUGE. If they can come up with another method to protect their revenue, then they do not need patents.
One option might be the "ransom model" which is essentially a form of crowd-funding. Collect pre-payments in escrow, when the drug is released to the public domain, the company receives all the prepayments. That's terribly over-simplified, especially given the stages of development for a modern drug. But those are details that can all be tailored for specific markets. One enormous benefit of the ransom model is zero sales uncertainty - the bean counters will know up front exactly how much money they can expect to make, which means it is possible for a company to never lose money.
(Score: 1) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday June 09 2017, @06:58PM (1 child)
Oh yes, there would never again be any research invested in drugs. Companies would just keep to the same old-same old, and there would never be another new drug that would replace an old one because it is more efficacious. Of course that would happen. Drug companies could never again profit from research, and they never would form consortiums to share the R&D costs on promising new therapies with an eye towards, "we're first with it as a group, we capitalize the P/R and use our network of sycophants, er, marketing reps, to hit every physican to make sure they're using Brand X label Placeboquin.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday June 12 2017, @09:22AM
I don't see that happening. It's far too easy to copy someone's drug formula and start manufacturing a low-priced generic clone without paying for the research that went into it.
The fact that it's possible to buy off physicians might help, but I don't see this kind of corruption as likely to save the day. Patents remain vital.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:50PM (25 children)
Nope, wouldn't mind in the least if a bunch of rent seeking, thieving parasites suddenly had to earn a real living doing real work.
Price of Epipens and Daraprim could use a little collapsing.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:57PM (24 children)
So you're going with Screw them, they're rich. I don't care if we sacrifice medical advancement?
Or do you too fail to realise that patents are what incentivise drug research?
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:58PM (10 children)
How does the continuing price hike in EpiPen and Daraprim products after their patents have expired reflect the cost of research?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:01PM (7 children)
If they're no longer under patent-protection, why is no-one else manufacturing them at a lower price?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:22PM (4 children)
Actually a good question. Why do out of patent drugs, maybe not this one, but others get price hiked to extraordinary levels once a new use is found for the same old drug?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:32PM (1 child)
I forget, does the US allow a new patent for a new use of an existing drug? If so, that's pretty messed up.
The other possible reason is market failure, but that's not something you'd fix by wiping out patents.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday June 07 2017, @06:13PM
No, you can't "re-patent" the same drug. You *can* make modifications to that drug and/or the manufacturing process and patent that. Biologics are particularly prone to this sort of manipulation. For devices (such as EpiPens), you can also patent new modifications to the device.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday June 07 2017, @06:08PM (1 child)
(1) Greed.
(2) Broken market, particularly with various middlemen (insurers, pharmacies, etc.) negotiating prices rather than consumers comparing them.
(3) Issues with generic approval (ensuring quality control for generics, additional testing required by FDA in some circumstances, etc.).
(4) For less common drugs, manufacturing a generic may not scale well. So after patent expiration you may still be looking at the original manufacturer or maybe one primary generic manufacturer who can manipulate price.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:26AM
Market failure and regulatory capture, then.
Not reasons to oppose the existence of drug patents.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Pino P on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:43PM (1 child)
Getting a generic medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as bioequivalent to the brand name requires certain red tape that Mylan (EpiPen) and Turing (Daraprim) are deliberately obstructing. From Wikipedia's article about the active ingredient in Daraprim [wikipedia.org] (internal citations omitted):
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:49PM
Then you have a "regulatory capture" problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:45PM (1 child)
From just the other day:
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:23AM
So, like I said: If they're no longer under patent-protection, why is no-one else manufacturing them at a lower price?
(Score: 2) by julian on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:24PM (11 children)
You have not convinced us medical advancement would cease or even slow.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:27PM (7 children)
Which part are you failing to grasp?
The temporary monopoly granted by patents are what incentivise expensive research into new drugs. If there are no patents, all drugs companies can manufacture all drugs equally well, and there's no incentive for anyone to pour money into research: if you do, everyone starts manufacturing the new drug, but you're the only one who paid for the research.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:47PM (4 children)
I hear you making an argument for public financing of research.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:00PM (1 child)
My understanding is that there isn't a good history of that getting results. I'm not opposed to the idea in principle though.
I also support charitable drug-research. The Cancer Research UK charity does this, for instance. (I'm not certain of the details or how they manage patent issues.)
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:15AM
CSL [wikipedia.org], until it was privatised for no good reason.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:55PM
You and I both know that a much better argument would be necessary to convince the American people to pay for this.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday June 07 2017, @10:43PM
Show me where that works long term. Look at the pathetic husk of NASA if you want a vivid counter factual. You might be too young to remember when they weren't pathetic losers, when they really were steely eyed missile men. But that was long ago and few remember; and their exploits now seem so improbable that large numbers believe they faked the moon landings. But no, they really were real men, the sort who made the wonder weapons that won WWII and the heroes who used them, then but something happened. And that something happens every time to a large government machine, it quickly turns to shit.
So if you want to assemble a vast government R&D team to solve a specific problem it might work, but the price is that it will obey the basic law of government. There is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program. Meaning it will waste resources decades beyond the time it is capable of actually accomplishing anything remotely useful.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:19PM (1 child)
But most would be forbidden to sell them in the USA through other bureaucratic mechanisms, would they not? Those ludicrous 1000%+ price hikes on ancient long-ago-out-of-patent drugs are easy to remember, you know.
The drug companies are already having their cake AND eating it too, thanks to much-too-helpful government. And do not forget the newly-invented "rights" written by them into the TPP; if not for Trump, they would be happily abusing those right now, as well.
They broke the social contract, long ago, in the name of greed. And it is likely that cheaper access to the already invented stuff will keep more people alive and healthy, than would their developing a few more updated cash-cow compounds.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:15AM
Sure, that should be fixed. There's plenty wrong with the way drugs are treated by the US government. The whole point is that the monopoly granted by patents has a limited term, after all.
Abolishing drug patents completely, though, remains a stupid idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:21PM (2 children)
Many companies do all they can to prevent their drugs from going generic because it eats at their profit. Less profit means less ROI, which means less investment/R&D.
Lack of patent protection would make most companies drop their small molecule programs (that are easily copied) because they will not be able to recoup their costs once they get approval.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @06:06PM (1 child)
So, Big Pharma drops their R&D. We still have the universities. Even if the big corporations just cease and desist from all research and development, said R&D won't simply stop, for all time. No, it won't be the end of life as we know it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:07AM
Academic discoveries (R&D) only account for ~15% of new drugs (link above). Development (R&D) is basically entirely done by companies.
The world won't end, but someone would have to pay the very large development bill if we want new therapies.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:09AM
More like "screw them, they've been screwing us long enough".
Like research in adding a methyl group to create a "new, improved" wonder drug that behaves in exactly the same way as the out of patent one?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @06:02PM (1 child)
*cough*
*cough*
Holy shit! You're trying to kill us, aren't you? Surely, you are joking, and/or being sarcastic? Sorry, you sounded serious at first reading.
Oh, WTF - serious answer, just in case you are serious. If "the industry" were to collapse, the world would probably be better off. If the ten largest pharma corporations went bankrupt, and their assets auctioned off, the world would most definitely be a better place. I really have little idea how many generic lable drug manufacturers there are in the world, but there are enough. India, among others, has been in the news for providing generic medicines to their people, which Big Pharma claims for their own. Off the cuff, I think the Indian generic manufacturers have won two of those cases, and lost another. There are probably more of which I'm unaware. Hell, we can import drugs from China, can't we? They wouldn't put melamine into drugs manufactured for export, would then? Oh - wait - I was being serious, sorry.
No, losing the ability to monopolize new drugs wouldn't make the pharma corporations fold. It would most definitely make them more competitive, and thus, somewhat more honest. In a decade or two, the last of the Skilling breed of "investors" and "entrepreneurs" may have died off. That would be a huge benefit to the world, and especially to the US.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:13AM
Like most other replies here, you seem to be lamenting how awful the big pharma companies are (and they really are, no disagreement there), while completely ignoring the question of the financial incentives for drugs research.
Why do you think they ever spend a dollar on research? Because they get a monopoly on new drugs, that's why. Without that monopoly, there is no incentive to spend on research into new drugs. You all seem to be wilfully ignoring this central point.
Yes, there is plenty of messed-up regulatory capture and government favouritism. No, that doesn't mean drug patents should be abolished.
And by definition, none of them do any drugs research.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @08:32PM (1 child)
I wouldn't. If those parasites can't find a way to compete in a real free market, they deserve to die and be replaced with those who could.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday June 12 2017, @09:46AM
So you're not even trying to deal with the questions at hand?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:26AM
Yes there are many frivolous patents, but software doesn't have a monopoly on that.
I once invented a lossless image compressor. No one before or since has come even close to the way I did it. I assert that an invention like that is worthy of a patent.
I asked my employer to patent it. They agreed, I wrote up some notes for the lawyers, but then the company was acquired by AOL and my patent was dropped on the floor.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]