> The government should buy drug patents at auction and make them publicy
> available. The present patent system means that drugs are very expensive, as
> companies take advantage of their monopoly their reward for successful
> innovation.
In other words, have the government create the monopoly, and then
subsidize those damaged by it. Why not just limit the patent in the
first place? Make the drug company account for all its research
costs and all its profits from drug sales, and then cancel the patent
as soon as they've recouped their investment, forcing them to
compete in the free market for further sales. For some limited-
market drugs, this would be much the same as the system now. For a
popular drug like Viagra, the patent would last maybe 6 months, and
then competing companies would manufacture it for less.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC [To drop AltInst, tell: majordomo@cco.caltech.edu to: unsubscribe altinst]Received on Thu Jun 22 11:41:15 2000
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