US research patenting stifles innovation
Fortune magazine has a feature on how careless handling of patent laws in the US has hurt innovation in biology and medicine.
“Twenty-five years ago a law known as Bayh-Dole spawned the biotech industry. It made lots of university scientists fabulously rich. It was also supposed to usher in a new era of innovation. So why are medical miracles in such short supply?”
Because something alarming has been happening over the past 25 years: Universities have evolved from public trusts into something closer to venture capital firms. What used to be a scientific community of free and open debate now often seems like a litigious scrum of data-hoarding and suspicion. And what’s more, Americans are paying for it through the nose.”
“The problem is, once it became clear that individuals could own little parcels of biology or chemistry, the common domain of scientific exchange—that dynamic place where theories are introduced, then challenged, and ultimately improved—begins to shrink.”
This can rightly be called a “Tragedy of the Anticommons.”