One of the leaders of the IP sceptic community,
Jamie Love of the Consumer Project on Technology, has a scheme for developing
pharmaceuticals without patent protection.
(Now, Jamie is not in the pharmaceutical business. So you might wonder why Jamie might think that he knows better than the existing, experienced pharmaceutical industry how to do their business.)
Jamie's scheme is basically to tax people, pool the money into a prize fund, and then have appointed government bureaucrats give prizes away to pharmaceutical companies who develop the drugs that the appointed government bureaucrats think are the right ones. The idea is that pharmaceutical companies will continue to take enormous risks in the development of new drugs, and indeed even increase their R&D, even though
1. they won't own the results of their research, and
2. whether or not they get remunerated for their research will be determined not by markets, but rather by government bureaucrats.
Anyway, for some time now Jamie has been implying that his scheme "has legs." He does this by referring to a bill that he says "is before the U.S. Congress." He's talking about H.R. 417.
Just about any time you hear Jamie speak, he talks about H.R. 417. He did so several times last April at the first WIPO session on the development agenda, and this morning he did it again in the form of a "question" to the first panel.
What Jamie is doing is purposely misleading internationals who are not sufficiently familiar with the U.S. Congress to understand that Jamie's flaky proposal has no political future in the U.S. Congress.
I took advantage of WIPO's excellent wireless Internet connection to look up the details on H.R. 417 on the THOMAS system (http://thomas.loc.gov). Here's what I found:
Jamie knows all this. He knows his idea is going nowhere. Jamie is like the guy who buys a property with little or nothing down, and then uses that "equity" as collateral for another loan. While his idea has no equity in the U.S., he is using the implication that it is "before Congress" to gather support for it internationally.
If Jamie is honest, he should stop implying that his idea is being taken seriously in the U.S. Congress. It is not.
Here is the link to the THOMAS info on H.R. 417.
(Now, Jamie is not in the pharmaceutical business. So you might wonder why Jamie might think that he knows better than the existing, experienced pharmaceutical industry how to do their business.)
Jamie's scheme is basically to tax people, pool the money into a prize fund, and then have appointed government bureaucrats give prizes away to pharmaceutical companies who develop the drugs that the appointed government bureaucrats think are the right ones. The idea is that pharmaceutical companies will continue to take enormous risks in the development of new drugs, and indeed even increase their R&D, even though
1. they won't own the results of their research, and
2. whether or not they get remunerated for their research will be determined not by markets, but rather by government bureaucrats.
Anyway, for some time now Jamie has been implying that his scheme "has legs." He does this by referring to a bill that he says "is before the U.S. Congress." He's talking about H.R. 417.
Just about any time you hear Jamie speak, he talks about H.R. 417. He did so several times last April at the first WIPO session on the development agenda, and this morning he did it again in the form of a "question" to the first panel.
What Jamie is doing is purposely misleading internationals who are not sufficiently familiar with the U.S. Congress to understand that Jamie's flaky proposal has no political future in the U.S. Congress.
I took advantage of WIPO's excellent wireless Internet connection to look up the details on H.R. 417 on the THOMAS system (http://thomas.loc.gov). Here's what I found:
- H.R. 417 was introduced by Bernie Sanders, an independent Member of the House from Vermont. Now, independents are very rare in the U.S. system. In fact, there is only one independent in the House, and it's Bernie Sanders. Rep. Sanders thus has no political party constituency, which makes it very difficult for him to move legislation. In fact, we in the U.S. are accustomed to seeing strange and flaky legislation with no political future sponsored by Rep. Sanders.
- H.R. 417 has no Senate sponsor. For any legislation to become law, it has to pass both houses of Congress and then be signed by the President. This bill has not even been introduced in the Senate, so it hasn't even reached the minimal threshold for consideration.
- H.R. 417 has no co-sponsors. Any legislation popular enough to have any chance of passage usually has dozens or even scores of co-sponsors. Co-sponsorship is a way of demonstrating to the leadership of Congress that a particular bill is worthy of consideration. Members "pile on" to popular legislation as co-sponsors. A bill with no co-sponsors goes nowhere.
Jamie knows all this. He knows his idea is going nowhere. Jamie is like the guy who buys a property with little or nothing down, and then uses that "equity" as collateral for another loan. While his idea has no equity in the U.S., he is using the implication that it is "before Congress" to gather support for it internationally.
If Jamie is honest, he should stop implying that his idea is being taken seriously in the U.S. Congress. It is not.
Here is the link to the THOMAS info on H.R. 417.