From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@msx.upmc.edu)
Date: Thu Jun 06 2002 - 11:44:19 MDT
From: CurtAdams@aol.com [mailto:CurtAdams@aol.com]
Well, the short answer is that the government is handing out monopolies
worth billions of dollars on purely arbitrary grounds (even if you believe
in intellectual property, there are absolutely no objective guidelines
on how broad they should be or how long they should last.) There's no
savory way to hand out the largess, so the contention becomes unsavory.
### I could imagine some objective methods of deciding here. For example,
you could measure the exact impact of new medication on human health (e.g.
as expressed in QALYs), as a function of the duration and breadth of patent
protection. If there is a point of diminishing returns (additional
prolongation in patent duration brings little or no improvement in QALY),
then you know the maximum duration. If reducing it cuts the number of drugs
getting to market and reduces QALY, you know you have to give more
incentives to drug companies.
The legal gunslingers should not be used as a substitute for statistitians
and epidemiologists. They should give us the answers, together with
economists.
Rafal
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