I think the argument is that the patent monopoly is too long, doing more than giving the inventor his fair shot at the market first. Patent monopoly should be limited to 3 years, give or take. That gives the inventor time to develop the final product that is or uses the patented concept and get it to market before the other guys can even think about it. It should be extendable such that drugs, which have to go through strict scrutinization, wouldn't use more than one year of monopoly time until FDA approval was granted, allowing the pharm manufacturer 2 years to get it on the shelf first.

People do research without patents. The government gives out lots of grants. The patent monopoly encourages companies to do the testing and certification only on drugs that have patents. There is a famous story in drugs, that one of the best cures wasn't utilized, because it was unpatentable, even though it was seen as the best cure.

In fact, one of the latest attempts by the British government has been pretty cool. They offer grants and an X-prize type thing for producing cheap drugs.

What I meant by encourages companies...was that it encourages them to only work on things that are patentable. There are other ways to encourage research. Also, we have encouraged drug companies to produces treatments and not cures. If you take this pill every day, you will live...well, that is great, but how about if I take it once and live?

We should find a different way to encourage research.

It costs between 500 - 2000 million dollars to get a new drug to market (embedded in the cost is the research costs for all the drugs that failed to get to market). Only about 25 new drugs make it to the market each year.
2 years monopoly on a drug is not nearly enough time to justify the costs.

IMHO, the patent system has been the single greatest advancement that led to the industrial revolution and the best reason that the world since the 1400s has exploded in technology.
Government enforcement of the patent system is probably more important for growth than anything else.

""The main reason is special interests who have an opportunity to lobby, be it concern groups that receive government funded, parents etc. who are naturally prone to bias from their own situation, or, more often, big businesses that benefit from the barriers to entry that are provided."

So, get rid of patents?"

http://blog.mises.org/9380/do-patents-save-our-lives/

"Healthcare can be sold across state lines. Health insurance cannot, which is different. If you are putting health insurance with healthcare...ok, but strange. Health insurance companies add costs to all medical procedures through overhead of profits and bureaucracy. Should we eliminate that?"

Carelessness in writing the post, but yes I would allow insurance to be sold across state lines.

"The drug companies better be doing the testing the FDA requires, or you are playing Russian Roulette with any drug you take. Who is to say what it does? Drug companies spend a lot on marketing and outreach to doctors to get people to use their stuff. That is nuts, if that is the path you are advocating. No testing, no barriers to entry, and lots of marketing?"

The FDA has strong incentives for being excessively cautious. An official can delay the release of a potentially life saving drug for decades with little criticism being lobbied, but if he makes a mistake on a drug which isn't safe, he will be fired and brought before the courts etc. A company, on the other hand, wants to maximise it's profits, which means being careful enough to reduce the risk of being sued for a dangerous drugs, but not by with-holding drugs for an excessively long time.

"That is great, in a system with perfect information, like a theoretical free market. In the real world, it works pretty poorly. How are you supposed to find out anything about the doctors or treatments? We can have a big Kudzu for doctors, I guess. Which would still be pretty poor information. You are kind of stuck in the theoretical. It is often hard to get good information on the differences between operating systems, and there aren't many of those."

You make a Nirvana fallacy: the legislators have imperfect information *and* counter-productive selfish motives too, so you cannot assume that the imperfect market will be bettered by the imperfect state intervention, and indeed the evidence I have seen points to the claim that it in fact doesn't.

Furthermore, the same claim can be made about cars- I know virtually nothing about what makes a good car good- but I can get advise from Which? etc. and buy one; even a bad choice will get me a reliable car.

There is research on drugs that actually cure as well. I know for a fact that they are working on experimental drugs that would encapsulate and protect pancreatic cells in Type-1 / Juvenile Diabetes so that they might resume manufacturing insulin as Type 1 Diabetes is commonly a result of the body attacking itself (antibodies mistaking the pancreas for a foreign invader). So research does go on. The problem is, even if a cure is found, getting a manufacturer to go throught the hoops to get it approved and produce it, knowing they won't get repeat business.

And maybe the time should be more than 2 years, but the point is that a monopoly for decades on somethings is a monopoly for life. Technology changes inside of a decade. Drugs? They may (and do) have longer lives so longer monopolies may be fine for them. What really needs to happen is patent law be revised so patents are classified as to what their technology is expected to fall into and the patent monpoly be set accordingly.

Patents are pretty horrible, honestly. If the patent office did a good job, maybe. Right now, patents are awarded for obvious things.

Also, it isn't like drug companies are hurting. They are making gobs of money right now. It looks like 50 new drugs were put on the market in 1999, with 28 billion spent in research, so 500 million is closer. They are spending a lot of money on marketing and big salaries for their upper management.

The drug companies are pretty high in return on revenue for fortune 500 companies. It is like 18% or so.

@TheGhostMaker
Having the FDA force research, and the drug companies do it, causes more information to be out there. That meddling is actually helping to improve information. Forcing safety precautions to be taken by the firms producing the drugs is good. You accuse me of making a Nirvana fallacy, but I made no suggestions. I just countered your suggestions. Although, your worship of the free market is misplaced. The free market causes monopolies and imbalances, which is why a regulated market is more efficient.

@Tantris: Please provide some examples of "obvious" things that are awarded patents.

in terms of R&D, the problem with having a regulated market is that some things just take brilliance or eureka moments. No matter how much funding you put into developing a cancer curing drug, it may never happen, but eventually someone may come around and find one on their own.
Regulated funding is good for making something that already exists cheaper or better, but its very difficult to direct it into something brand new.

@LordVipor:
Ok.
Here are some:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/crazy.html

first off, the first one is a patent application (has not been approved yet)
the second one: whats obvious about it? I never thought about putting a woman in a centrifuge to simplify birthing
the third: actually read the patent claims,

any one of those by itself may be "obvious" but putting them all together is non-obvious. For someone to actually infringe upon the patent, they must create something that uses ALL the claims.

Oh, come on, there are tons of stupid patents. 1 click purchasing. In that list there was "swinging side to side on a swing".

How about the guy who "patented" hypelinks long after they had been developed then tried forcing every browser developer to pay him?

I'll admit method of exercising a cat is pretty silly but the last two claims are pretty specific, and the "novel, non-obvious" part is using the laser for exercise, not amusement.

"1 click purchasing."

That reminds me of the Dilbert where Dogbert patents "0 click" purchasing and just starts sending people stuff and charging them.

There are almost 8 million patents. It isn't that many. Included in them are business method patents, which are just ludicrous. Then, we have things like the patenting of someones DNA or their genes. Which is just silly. Why are we patenting exercising a cat with a laser instead of just doing it for amusement of the cat? We splitting hairs here? So, if I use it for fun, it is ok, but if I use it for exercise, he can sue me?

lol
Those are new "Methods of Business" type patents
Nothing obvious about 1-click purchasing, it was never used before so it is novel

"Having the FDA force research, and the drug companies do it, causes more information to be out there. That meddling is actually helping to improve information. Forcing safety precautions to be taken by the firms producing the drugs is good. You accuse me of making a Nirvana fallacy, but I made no suggestions. I just countered your suggestions. Although, your worship of the free market is misplaced. The free market causes monopolies and imbalances, which is why a regulated market is more efficient."

The FDA delays drug release, which causes more deaths than are saved by drugs being withheld by the FDA. In short, the FDA is a horrible, indirect method of killing.

You are making a suggestion: regulated markets in healthcare. The status quo is a suggestion.

Furthermore, the free market is not a causer of monopolies. With the exception of the De Beers diamond monopoly, and arguably the Wall St. financial monopoly prior to the depression, there have been no major exceptions to the rule that all monopolies have been government enforced.

(sorry that last reply of mine was very late and 10 minutes outdated)

its like the same thing if you patent using aspirin for curing blindness (if you find a new novel method for something, thats a new patent)

patenting someones DNA or gene also applies only for how you use it. You cannot patent just GATTACACAGTA..., but you can patent GATTACACAGTA... in position such and such, which causes glow in the dark for marsupials...

Ma Bell was a free market monopoly

Are you saying patents are government enforced?

Regardless, there have been a lot of non-government enforced monopolies.

@Tantris - Well, duh... The judicial system is part of the government and the judicial system in the system that puts fines and injunctions in place when patents are violated. Geez!

AT&T's telephone monopoly was a goverment sanctioned monopoly!

And it's breakup was government enforced. But that isn't a patent monopoly.

"Regardless, there have been a lot of non-government enforced monopolies."

Go on, name and date five. I'll do the same.

"And it's breakup was government enforced. But that isn't a patent monopoly."

It would have to be when the monopoly was established. I wasn't arguing that all monopolies are patent monopolies either, just government monopolies. LordVipor claimed it was a free market monopoly.

Government sanctioned does not equal government enforced. Allowing something to happen is not the same thing and preventing others from stopping it.