Should patents should be abolished as with property in human beings?

Question

I throw this question up after reading Sampat and Williams in the January 2019 AER.  I must say I doubt economics - or should be - is the last word on this question.  One could probably run a regression analysis to show slavery was productivity enhancing but it was abolished.  One could also prima facie argue that if abortion is legal, sale of the living or dead products of conception should be legal and would be "welfare enhancing" as buyer and seller would be happy by definition.  Thank God, the law is a little smarter and such things are still illegal.


Dear Sirs

I note your article in the January 2019 AER.  I believe there is a compelling abolitionist case and the common law was right.

Having been cured of cancer years ago by a non-chemo route, after surgery had failed, I became interested in the law and economics of the legal drug cartels.

These may be of interest.  They certainly were not answered.

https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/patents/submissions/submissions-test/submission-counter/sub01-patents.pdf

https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/patents/submissions/submissions-test2/submission-counter/sub037-patents.pdf


Kind regards

Terry Dwyer



Terry Dwyer  B.A. (Hons) B.Ec. (Hons) (Syd.) M.A. Ph.D. (Harvard), Dip. Law (Syd.), CTA

Answer 1

My answer will be short.

Without patents there is not motive to investigate or develope new techniques in the private sector, the lucrative motive is huge and there is always necessary a way of living. I think the question should be formulated as "Should the health care be a public service and medical investigation focus on the population with just the moral motive?"

Comments

I'm reading Joeph Stiglitz's work and I have thought, being a future business man and a moral newbie economist, that the better way to treat medical patents as same as other kind of patents is set a top profit related to costs of the production, in monopoly market power. If you want to receive a higher profit you have to reduce costs and reduce a bit less prices. With other kind of patents, out of the health care system, growing companies can have a higher top profit level the first two years for example. This would help that company to invest and get market power. Regarding spillovers, a few contracts 50/50 on profits, after a few years, can improve investigation and development of new techniques or products related to the patent.

I think this answer is less extreme than my first one.