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Comment by datashovel | Hacker News Reader

My only hope, with regard to genetic engineering, is that the people who are actually discovering this stuff are strong enough to prevent large corps from patenting all of the most important intellectual property that will empower future generations.

My active imagination hypothesizes that the people who go to work every day to invent / discover this stuff go to work only with the meager hope of collecting on their 6-figure salaries to provide for their families and pay their children through higher education. Perhaps even a stint at an Ivy League school. Meanwhile empowering large multinational corporations / conglomerates with the enormous wealth of intellectual property that their grandparents would be ashamed of.

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You basically described my life. In a best case scenario I cure cancer, and some rich people get richer charging patients their life savings for the right to stay alive.

The only way out of this trap is to destroy the patents. They add nothing other than concentrating wealth and power. The research will always be done anyway; there will always be people like me.

And yet research costs money. No way around that sadly.

If you are implying that patents are the only way to fund research you are wrong. They are in fact one of the least efficient ways. The NIH funds more research with a paltry $30 billion than all of pharma does taking $300 billion in patent royalties each year.

Do you have a link to a source for this? Not that I doubt you, but that just seems really, really hard to judge without full information and there could be obvious biases...

Uh... that's not true.

Total pharma spending on R&D is double that of the NIH. Also, the NIH budget is mostly focused on basic science and much of the work has nothing to do with bringing a new drug to market.

Unless you have a great idea on how to replace $60B+ in annual drug development costs, the current system will stay as it is.

I do! First that is worldwide R&D. In the US it is only $26 billion a year, so we could easily cover it by doubling the NIH budget. Since in exchange we get new drugs at generic prices it more than pays for itself just in money saved on Medicare payouts. Even paying out $60 billion would be cheaper.

If that is too socialist for you we can merely replace patents with a prize system, where we award people a large sum for developing a drug. This is what pharma largely does anyway (wait for startups then buy them out once they've done the hard stuff) so not much would change. For $1 billion a piece we can get ten drugs a year at huge savings.

I got more ideas, but this suffices to demonstrate how easy this is if you think about it. Patents really are the worst way.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, you've obviously researched this.

I think there are two challenges with your approaches.

1. The expertise needed to bring a drug to market doesn't currently exist within NIH funded entities. They are trying to create it, but have been having a hell of a time. Discovering new science and bringing a drug to market are two very different things.

2. The prize system has it's own challenges. First off, the prizes would have to be huge. Lipitor sales were over $100B during the 10+ years it was on the market. A $2B prize won't mean much.

3. The biggest challenge with the prize system is how do you judge whether or not someone deserves the prize? For example, if we offer a prize for a new antibiotic for multi-drug resistant bacteria, how do you judge whether or not the new drug met the goals? Evaluating a new drug is not black and white at all. What if it kills the bacteria, but is really toxic? What if it works, but not for everyone? Do they still get the prize?

I agree in principal. Though I have never explored data extensively I would say in general it's probably true. Though patents were created to protect the average inventor, they end up protecting (net value) the large corporation.

It's hard for the typical "hard-core capitalist / free-market guy" to understand, but I consistently argue that regardless of where the money flows as long as passionate people are able to sustain a comfortable living studying what they love, there will always be amazing breakthroughs in all fields, regardless of "market forces".

Why would some one who is free-market be in favor of patents? Patents involve government intervention at a very low level (e.g., evaluating technical details to determine patentability) and are prone to regulatory capture, which is not remotely free-market. I do see how a "hard-core capitalist" would love patents though.

Correct. Patents are antithetical to a free market, as Rothbard wrote in Chapter 10 of Man, Economy, State. I don't know of a more definitive hardcore laissez-faire capitalist than that.

Sorry, I was formulating 2 separate thoughts in a single comment. Not obvious now that I've re-read it.

> It's hard for the typical "hard-core capitalist / free-market guy" to understand, but I consistently argue that regardless of where the money flows as long as passionate people are able to sustain a comfortable living studying what they love, there will always be amazing breakthroughs in all fields, regardless of "market forces".

You have ample evidence of what is accomplished without market forces: The Internet, Web, email, Linux, Firefox, Newton, Einstein, almost all science, every political and social idea and movement, everything done by almost any soldier (who give their lives without the pull of market forces), parent, friend, mentor, etc. (EDIT: I forgot NASA and most other explorers!)

The idea that people only act due to market forces and selfishness is obviously absurd, a simplistic ideology used by some to rationalize their own greed.

The counter-argument is that without concentrated wealth and power, no one would be able to afford the cost of that research. I disagree with that argument, but how would one counter-argue it?

Large groups of people pool their resources to pay for expensive shit all the time. Just take the US military, as one example.

I don't know. In the US you get 20 years of protection from a patent from time of filing. If somebody beats you to it, you don't. This means that a lot of tech filings are going to be pre-commercial. This means that once on the market, it will need to be tested by the market. Once the market decides that it is a better/faster/cheaper tool than the competitive product/process/genome, you've got, what, 7~10 years? Maybe?

So, during this window, if you over price it, it isn't better/faster/cheaper. If it is priced competively, people benefit. The only "losers" are those that have to wait 10 years to rip off your research and clone your product and undersell you.

What's the problem here?

Sure, so instead of messing with messy market risk, better to patent first and not commercialize. Then sue the hell out of anyone that tries (or bury whatever the idea behind the patent, because I filed the patent, so if I can't have it, fuck 'em. It's my natural right.)

Then, start a fund that simply buys the patents and "defends them" because I can get investors a 15% return from legal extortion (as opposed to illegal extortion which is higher risk/higher reward and less scalable.) Those investors will make me rich and give me lots of cool inventor awards and fancy dinners, so it all looks super legit. And make sure to hire lobbyists, because they're pretty good at making sure a good thing doesn't die.

Step 1: Be Nathan Myhrvold?

The world is certainly moving more quickly than it used to, and maybe 20 years is too long for patent protection. The alternative to utilization of a patented technology is to keep doing what you have been doing. Many people certainly do. The the patent expires about 10 years (or less) from the time the technology is made available to the market. Is that a problem? Seriously - I don't know. It doesn't seem to be (to me), but maybe the timeline is too long?

Yes, it's a problem because it causes artificial distortions on the market due to the technology not being available widely. You could argue the patent gets assigned it's fair market value because it is offered to license, but monopolies do not price well.

It has nothing to do with "protecting the little guy" and in fact protects no one except for non-violent gangsters. You pay them for protection, the courts pay for their protection, and technological progress slows down because engineering around patents becomes a thing.

Look: if you're pro-patents, fine, just realize how the money machine works. In practice, it's about making money and maintaining the power to do so, nothing deeper than that.

I don't know. If they priced it at $1B per use, and nobody bought it, it would still be available for 3rd party replication 10 years after it hit the market.

This isn't right topic thread for this discussion; I apologize.

If there was no patent system, you would keep all your ideas and research secret. And that would hinder advances in science, as people would keep discoveries to themselves.

> If there was no patent system, you would keep all your ideas and research secret. And that would hinder advances in science, as people would keep discoveries to themselves.

What about all the open knowledge and technology, such as most of what's published in scientific journals? Was Einstein's physics research hindered because he didn't patent relativity? Watson and Crick? Norman Borlaug? Think of all the open source computer innovations that have been given away and continue to be (are you excited about Rust?).

I agree that it seems, by today's standards, a non-issue. And in reality perhaps it is just my active imagination that is the enemy here. Although I would posit that though 7-10 years seems like a reasonable timeframe to most people today, it will probably appear to be a lifetime to future generations.

If you really think about it, how long do Cell Phones last on the market before they're no longer a threat commercially? If I had to put a number to it I'd say no more than 1 year. After that you better have something new, and hopefully patented to prevent competition.

Now amplify that by 2x, maybe 3x, or 10x. Now perhaps only the patent holder has legal rights to experiment on a given range of problems (given the nature of the patent). I imagine if someone plays their cards right, and hits the "patent lottery", you end up with a "waterfall-effect", or in other words, centuries worth of patents by a single entity with no end in sight.

Perhaps those in the field recognize that biology is just as diverse if not more diverse than most other fields. And my concern could be a red herring. I, personally, have no doubt that the field of biology is enormously diverse, and in most academic settings I'd consider this pretty much a non-issue. I think the over-arching fear is the US has nominated 9 people, none of whom are likely to know a significant amount about genetic engineering, to decide (in essence) the fate of genetic engineering and the "patentability" of specific inventions / discoveries.

What I think the field of genetic engineering may need in its future, is the equivalent of a Linus Torvalds in their field. Someone who will cut through the BS, and donate the overwhelming majority of their work / research to the public domain to prevent or reduce the possibility of some calamitous scenario from unfolding.

The 20-years-from-file is a recent change. It used to be 17-years-from-grant. The timelines can be dealt with statutorily.

I have no doubt that large amounts of biological data will be freely available to the market. And many foundational techniques (such as PCR, and now CRISPR) have quite a long useful lifespan. It isn't as if digital cellular telephony wasn't known before Nokia, just that some vendors (Motorola) misjudged and stuck with analog too long after the cost calculus changed.

You raise an interesting question about waterfall effects. I'll have to ponder this some. In any case, say this does happen - the patent holder gets very rich (fairly or not) and the world gets a constant stream of always better innovative biotech. I don't understand how the world suffers whether the beneficiary of the dollar flow is one entity or a hundred.

I agree that, in general, the likely outcome is progress. The question in most cases is how fast progress will "progress" :) Open source has (I think at this point) proven that openness and transparency accelerates progress. But openness only thrives when the entire cycle is not fulfilling a single entity's net worth. In fact my theory on the fate of money in general is that accumulating large sums of it will become far less important in the future, and so will the likelihood that a CEO would feel compelled to push their company toward that end.

I'm certainly not net-negative on my outlook / perspective on human nature. I am, however, one who would promote a "trust but verify" philosophy.

Certainly, the weight of the factors of production have changed. Land to factories to paying the salaries of knowledge workers. Who could decide to cooperatively own their own work product and pay themselves out of cash flows.

I don't know that I am a "trust but verify" person as much as a "don't solve problems before they occur" person, because: 1) The solution may cause more problems than the problem, 2) We had a different problem than the one expected occur.

If anything, the world seems to be progressing at a pretty good clip and not slowing down. In almost every fundamental field - bio, materials, physics etc. And it does so in the presence of a patent system that may or may not be retarding progress, but if it is, it's not doing a very good job of it.

Things like Uber and Open Source and the like make me inclined towards: "Leave it alone, and see what happens".

That's an important point. I think (in general) a well-educated population, coupled with transparency of policy, almost certainly negates the possibility of long-term nefarious action. Even bad decisions can be reversed in general (in a properly functioning government). So to a point I definitely agree, but would generally promote a more pro-active philosophy to help ensure slimy situations don't sneak up on you.

That's fair.

I suppose that I am always looking for ulterior motives from the players that you can't see when it comes to massive government/regulatory action. Any large change is sold on a story that sounds about right, but I'm worried that something else is really going on with it. That probably makes me borderline paranoid, but an example would be what's happened with Net Neutrality. We all (mostly) want Net Neutrality - but the regulatory response seemed to be a huge change in regulatory scope. This in response to a problem that really hasn't happened yet, or was being sorted out anyway by the players in the market (Comcast/Netflix). And it leaves the door open for the FCC to weigh in on a lot of things that make me provisionally worried that what we were sold and what we will get aren't necessarily the same thing.

Aaand, now I've gone way (way!) off topic of the thread. Thanks for the discussion.

> What I think the field of genetic engineering may need in its future, is the equivalent of a Linus Torvalds in their field. Someone who will cut through the BS, and donate the overwhelming majority of their work / research to the public domain to prevent or reduce the possibility of some calamitous scenario from unfolding.

Didn't most research used to be published openly in scientific journals? Has that changed, or was that a golden age that never existed?

Based on my meager understanding, openly sharing research was one of Bacon's foundations of the Enlightenment and the scientific enterprise.

Definitely. Although my understanding is that patents will be filed and awarded. Which will essentially cut all "outsiders" from profiting from the research, which ultimately helps corporations perpetuate their R&D lifecycle.

Forgive me if I'm misinformed here, but Monsanto may be a good example of a corporation who has put their GMO patents to good use to gain enormous market share in agriculture.

The CRISPR IP battle is being fought between universities, not corporations.

CRISPR aside, the IP situation in biotech and specifically in synthetic biology (parts-based biology) is not a good one. Currently there exists IP around many small DNA components (you can think of them as genes though this wouldnt be correct in all cases - more like DNA programs).

Currently in biology, if I want to build a composite part, that incorporates many separate parts, each with IP around them, I need to get a license for all of those parts.

The tech industry had a similar problem back in the "golden age" of computer parts development. It is often so expensive and difficult for any innovation to happen to happen under these circumstances, as so many patents and licenses and what not must be obtained, which typically frightens investors from putting cash in small startups. The tech industry has solved this with EDA tools - we need something similar in biotech.

What I'd call a DNA Part or cassette, techs call an "IP" or silicone block IP. They have worked out a system where it appears the big design software houses act as brokers and clearing houses for their users. They aggregate not only the necessary licenses, but also the documentation and design rules for how to use a specific part. Then the design tool compiles all these parts down into something that is sent for synthesis by the foundry. They're really light years ahead of the biotech industry on this.

I recommend this fascinating overview of how intellectual property rights in integrated circuit design have evolved. It would be great to see similar things happen in my industry.

http://timreview.ca/article/442

> So, during this window, if you over price it, it isn't better/faster/cheaper. If it is priced competively, people benefit. The only "losers" are those that have to wait 10 years to rip off your research and clone your product and undersell you.

I'm pretty sure this is why we're only seeing consumer VR now, despite the fact that we had most of this technology in 1995. Patent-wise, it wasn't safe to rip off until now.

This is also (again, I suspect) why the current input situation is so underwhelming: anything exciting is going to reply on technology developed in the last 10 years that the R&D firms are pricing at self-defeatingly high cost.

Maybe. An SGI Workstation level device that fits in the palm of your hand and costs <$30,000 may have something to do with it. I don't think that this is necessarily evil patent squatting stuff. I was at Motorola for a while in the 90s, we looked at the patent landscape - knew how to go around them - and we just couldn't make the numbers work for a consumer play.

We're seeing VR now because smartphones have made the access to small HD screens abundant and relatively cheap.

And accelerometers & gyros. Also processors & GPUs, as my uncle comment sent. All of these being cheap and high quality is why personal VR currently has a shot at happening.

> Once the market decides that it is a better/faster/cheaper tool than the competitive product/process/genome, you've got, what, 7~10 years? Maybe?

This assumes the "market" makes a good decision. It's not a God, it's just tool. Like any tool, it works well in some situations and not in others.

One thing it's not good at is allocating resources based on need rather than on wealth. What about the people who need the product but can't afford it? What about the innovations that are delayed, and the innovations based on those innovations, and all the people that would benefit from them?

> What about the people who need the product but can't afford it?

They can wait 7~10 years, no? Patents are not forever.

Is your theory that billions should be allocated (somehow) to researching a list of things that some people somewhere need with no prospect of recouping that expense? And, if so, of the thousands of things that people think they need, which ones get priority? Bill Gates may be doing some cool things in this direction, but he's not an infinite resource.

> They can wait 7~10 years, no? Patents are not forever.

For people with many illnesses it means death (literally, "forever"). For others, it means 7-10 years of suffering or debilitating illness.

Regarding your other questions/points, I wonder if I misunderstand them because the answers are very well-known. Sorry if I'm missing something:

> Is your theory that billions should be allocated (somehow) to researching a list of things that some people somewhere need with no prospect of recouping that expense?

The enterprise of science has proceeded for centuries on exactly this basis, and society (via government) has funded it successfully. Much of what you benefit from now was funded by fellow citizens, past and present.

> of the thousands of things that people think they need, which ones get priority?

There is no definitive solution, of course, but this issue has long been addressesed by funding organizations such as the NSF, NIH, etc.

I thought patents only lasted 17 years. Having said that, would it be possible to publicly fund more open research? The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge raised $100m, for example.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/08...

> My only hope, with regard to genetic engineering, is that the people who are actually discovering this stuff are strong enough to prevent large corps from patenting all of the most important intellectual property that will empower future generations.

Why? If you ever want this technology to be accessible to the public then someone somewhere is going to have to be making money on it. Drug manufacturing isn't done by colleges or governments.

How would that happen? Most research is funded by the federal government. Biology is too expensive and too unreliable for companies to sink the money into research themselves until the technology is at the point where it just needs to be optimized.

Also, most biologists aren't making six figures.

Oh, I definitely agree. No private entity could truly compete with government funded research. That's the ideal scenario where all important medical breakthroughs are a result of government funded research.

what?

1) A ton of contemporary research is funded through the American Cancer Society, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Herceptin was essentially kicked off through the charitable contributions of the cosmetics company Revlon.

2) Polio was cured through the efforts of a nongovernmental research agency (March of Dimes)

3) For basic research: The Glyn Research Trust was an entity set up to discover the chemiosmotic effect. Few people believed Mitchell, and it is unlikely that the work would have gotten public funding. Not only is the chemiosmotic effect now uncontroversial, but Mitchell won a Nobel Prize for his work.

I'm certainly not implying that there aren't major non-government research efforts out there. Perhaps even more effective in some cases. But simply by sheer numbers, 2016 NIH proposed budget is $31.3 billion (http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/). That's a single year.

The entire endowment of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (if the numbers are up-to-date on Wikipedia) is worth ~$19 billion. According to some basic info I've found online it appears March of Dimes averages approximately $200 million per year in donations.

$30+ billion is already alot, but, given the right circumstances, at the drop of a hat a future president might be so bold to ask to redirect even more of the US Federal government's ~$4 trillion annual budget toward those efforts.

I can't expect the same people to both advance the state of the art, and resist the prevailing economics that incentivize corporations who stand to gain the most (through leveraging exclusive rights) to generously fund research.

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