On intellectual property and government surveillance

[Viliam Furik]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

I hope that you kept up on your vaccinations and antibiotics while that was happening.

Could you explain what you mean by this? I fail to understand the intention behind this post, and I am very curious as to what it is. I have a few theories, but I just don't understand. (Nothing sarcastic, I'm genuinely curious.)

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Viliam Furik

Could you explain what you mean by this?

It was a lawyer joke. The idea was that lawyers from an American firm might have cooties and could infect an upstanding Englishmen by continued contact.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

I hope that you kept up on your vaccinations and antibiotics while that was happening.

Brilliant!

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

It was a lawyer joke. The idea was that lawyers from an American firm might have cooties and could infect an upstanding Englishmen by continued contact.

Huh. This is the first "lawyer joke" I've seen involving anything about lawyers being communicable or infectious person-to-person.

It is also the first time I have seen anyone intimate that cooties might be willing to associate with lawyers.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

This is a good case where the patent was received, then made freely available. The casual reader may ask, "Then why go to the effort and expense to get the patent?".

The QR code (and its licensing) is a similar example where a raising tide (in this case, interoperability) lifts all boats.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

This is a good case where the patent was received, then made freely available. The casual reader may ask, "Then why go to the effort and expense to get the patent?". The reason to do so would be to prevent someone else from filing for a patent on the idea, getting the patent, then charging royalties on it. Getting the patent, but not charging for others to use it protects it for free use. This is a good an noble choice. With software, it is harder to do this, because of all the smaller pieces involved. But, it is still a good thing to use certain licenses to keep things free.

The co-discoverers of insulin assigned the patent to the U. of Toronto for a token $1, with this rationale:

"The patent would not be used for any other purpose than to prevent the taking out of a patent by other persons. When the details of the method of preparation are published anyone would be free to prepare the extract, but no one could secure a profitable monopoly."

...and yet insulin prices in Griftopia USA have skyrocketed in the past several decades.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

The co-discoverers of insulin

I like that formulation. In fact, the only good thing coming out from that mock-up of a Nobel prize...

[Dr Sardonicus]

It seems that in Scrip Med World, you can often only get the newest iteration of a given drug. Certainly, the drug companies only advertise the "latest and greatest," available only by prescription - even if an "obsolete" version is now available over the counter and works just fine.

I marvel at the drug ads on TV. Some of the latest wonder drugs seem to allow the customers using them, or perhaps the actors portraying people using them, to vacation in some very scenic places.

The small print describes "possible side effects" which sometimes seem remarkably similar to the ailment the drug is supposed to treat; and sometimes include problems that can lead to death.

The ads sometimes say the drug "may" have the primary effect of its whole class of drugs. In particular, there is a class of immunosuppressant drugs being touted for arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn's disease, and even dry eyes, whose ads say they "may limit your ability to fight infections."

And, of course, many of these ads have solicitous messages at the end, "If you need help paying for your medication..."

Anyway, the "latest and greatest" being the only game in town pertains to insulin, because while the basic patent for insulin was sold to the University of Toronto almost a century ago (I don't know if the rights have expired, but most patent rights expire in far less than a century), it allowed subsequent patents for improvements in the production of insulin. And, if the latest method of producing the stuff is the only one anybody is using...

I wonder how many perfectly good drugs are no longer being produced because the patent rights have long since expired.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

I wonder how many perfectly good drugs are no longer being produced because the patent rights have long since expired.

Many. They are known as "off-patent", so they no longer get the prices demanded by Monopolies.

Some are continuously working on correcting this... Some with Money, in fact.

IMO, a fundamental example of where the equations don't always result in what we want.

Equations can be tweeked.