It has recently been discovered that a method of ventilating newborns with liquid would save their lives. See http://www.basqueresearch.com/berria_irakurri.asp?Gelaxka=1_1&Berri_Kod=930&hizk=I
But this new technique is patented and will not be utilized because the owner of the patent sees no profit in the production. The law, in effect, penalizes newborns because of market constrictions and the patent prevents non-profit development and use of the technique. Should there, perhaps, be a part of the granting of the patent, a proviso that if the original idea is not utilized by the patent owner for the benefit of the public, the public has a right to utilize the idea so that lives may be saved?
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Eminent intellectual domain.
I'm suspicious that there must be more to the story. Perfluorocarbons have commercial applications. As a blood substitute, for one. I've heard of the liquid ventilation application and I'm not anywhere near the medical profession.
Here's a story about the very application referred to in the main posting: http://www.gla.ac.uk/surgicalpaediatrics/liquid.htm
"The technique has been used by paediatric surgeon Mr Carl Davis of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow to save the life of one infant and a clinical trial is under way in the US to see how oxygen-bearing liquids could be used in other patients."
By my hasty check, something's not adding up about the claims in the Basque Research story of the unavailability of medical perflurocarbons.
That being the example used to justify the idea of seizing intellectual property casts additional doubts on the proposal as a whole.
Whatever the validity of the story, the principle stands.
I think this power could be subject to political manipulation, but in general it's a good idea. Our society needs to think about why we have a patent system and what we want from it, and we need to recognize that patents are a state-granted monopoly privilege, and not analogous to personal property like one's own house or car.
Was the idea not based on the "fact" that the patented process was not being used?
How does it still stand in light of the referenced, published uses of the product and process in question?
I think sand empahsized the example (ventilation) in order to grab the reader's attention.
The real point is that patents should be invalidated if the patented device/process is not being used. I'm pretty sure that there are many such patents, though I can't name any off the top of my head (I've heard of this in other situations, and I expect that many patented products aren't being manufactured because there's no market for the product or the patent owner has not been able to strike an acceptable licensing deal).
I think it'll be tricky determining whether the patented invention is being used...but this gives me an idea. Maybe after a short "getting started" period (say, 5 years), it should be possible for a person/group to challenge a patent simply by offering to pay to destroy the patent. If the patent holder out-bids the challenger, he gets to keep the patent for another five years. The money would go into a National Trust (similar to the Alaskan Permanent Trust) and pay out dividends to all citizens. We may want to introduce some tweaks so that this can work for multiple renewals, but it may get rid of the tendency for patent holders to hold onto patents that are valuable to the public.
Sand, I believe that if you can improve a product or process that is patented you can apply for a new patent.
I was under the impression that a derivative invention would be patentable, but not marketable without a license from the original patent holde (or waiting for the original patent to expire).
Anyway, if that's true, maybe we should allow derivative inventions to be marketed without permission from the original patent holder -- this would force the patent holder to continue developing the original concept...but it may become too easy to do an end-run around a particular patent (e.g. "I glued device 1 to device 2, thereby creating a new invention, which I will sell to the public, and they will split into its component parts because my "invention" really isn't that useful")
I spoke to a friend about this, and he suggested we make all medicine unpatentable.
You raise a lot of excellent points here. It turns out that much of what you are proposing is already built into the US patent law. Other countries have similar provisions.
Patent owners have to pay periodic maintenance fees in order for a patent to remain in force. You can see a listing of the fees for the US here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee2006may15.htm#maintain
The fees grow as the patent gets older. The idea is to encourage patent owners to let their patents become dedicated to the public if they no longer have any commercial value. At 11.5 years, for example, at small entity (500 employees or less) must pay $1,900 to keep a patent in force. A large entity must pay twice that. Multiply these fees by the number of countries that a patent might issue in (patents must be issued in each country that you want protection in), and it’s no surprise that inventors let about 2/3 of the patents that issue expire due to failure to pay the maintenance fees.
Patents developed by Universities using US government funds can be nationalized if the University does not actively try to commercialize the inventions disclosed therein. This is called “march in rights”. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh-Dole_act#Petitions_for_march-in_rights