The Dark Side of the Tech Patent Wars 196
GMGruman writes "Bill Snyder warns that the tech patent wars are going nuclear, and could vaporize tech jobs in the process. He likens the situation to medicine, where so much money now goes to pay for insurance and 'defensive medicine,' rather than for actual care. In the tech world, he fears that the same will occur with patents, forcing companies to spend ever more money on patents and lawyers — and less on innovation and staff."
Re:Dark side? (Score:4, Informative)
Why do you assume compensated means wealthy? Compensated means gainfully employed. I can show you millions.
That's not compensated. It does not adjust proportionally to the value of the inventions. Others are reaping the profits from the inventions.
By your logic, slaves were compensated, because they received room and board.
Re:Dark side? (Score:5, Informative)
No, it has to do with recouping the costs of development and testing. Wikipedia has [wikipedia.org] the estimated cost of producing a new drug in the US, which it says may be in the range of $55 million to $800 million (US). Different studies seem to disagree with one another about the costs.
Regardless, drug companies patent the drug prior to clinical trials [wikipedia.org]. It can take up to 6 years in R&D to develop a new drug, and another 8 years in clinical trials (that's the clinical trial period for cancer drugs). Lets say they get their patent 2 years before starting clinical trials. That means they only have 10 years to reclaim their R&D costs until their patent runs out (patent length of 20 years). Once the patent runs out, generic versions of the drug can be made and the original pharma will make much less money on the drug. Plus you have to take into account how many people will be purchasing your drug when setting the price. If it was something like cold medicine, you can charge less since you'll get a ton of customers. Cancer and heart medication is going to have fewer consumers, which means higher costs are required to recoup the R&D and testing costs.
I don't disagree with you that pharma probably charge way too much for their drugs, but you have to keep in mind that the cost of bringing a new drug to the market is very expensive.