From: hibbert@netcom.com
Date: Mon Oct 08 2001 - 17:37:38 MDT
bradbury@aeiveos.com said:
> Its a swamp from an extropic point of view. If you don't allow
> patents, getting investors to fund research at companies like Myriad
> is much more difficult. If you do allow patents, then you end up with
> higher medical care costs.
Doesn't seem that hard to me. It sounds like Myriad is trying to stop
people from using devices that were independantly invented. That would
mean that the patents weren't needed to make the research happen. It's a
race to commercialize the technology rather than a race to the patent
office before you know what the ideas are good for. (Of course, you might
argue that both research groups were banking on being the patent-holder in
order to be able to reap the monopoly profit. If that were the case it's
hard to see why the loser of the patent race would continue to pursue a
product.)
If, on the other hand, the devices are derived from Myriad's work, then
Myriad is making one of the possible choices about how much to charge for
the technology on which they've been granted a monopoly. They're in the
position of having to decide how much to sqeeze for access to their patent.
They can charge a lot and drive people toward other solutions, or charge
less and hope to make it up on volume. Neither of these choices should
scare people away from further research.
Chris
---
Chris Hibbert hibbert@netcom.com
Currently reading: Hernando de Soto "Mystery of Capital", Julian Simon
"The Ultimate Resource II", George R.R. Martin "Game of Thrones"
http://discuss.foresight.org/~hibbert/home.html
Yahoo Instant Message: ag_cth
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