Intellectual Echo Chambers

by Henry Farrell on October 12, 2004

“Ross Silverman”:http://publichealthpress.blogspot.com/ informs me that a NYT “story”:http://bernie.house.gov/documents/articles/20030602123259.asp from last year details a multinational multi-million dollar effort by PhRMA to attack price controls on drugs. According to the NYT, the drug industry “is worried that price controls and other regulations will tie the drug makers’ hands as state, federal and foreign governments try to expand access to affordable drugs.” In order to combat this:

bq. The drug trade group plans to spend $1 million for an “intellectual echo chamber of economists — a standing network of economists and thought leaders to speak against federal price control regulations through articles and testimony, and to serve as a rapid response team.”

It seems highly probable that this – or a related effort – is behind the TCS ‘essay competition’ that I “talked about”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002652.html on the weekend., which is pretty small stuff in the grander scheme, I suppose. We already know that Flack Central Station is “in part funded by PhRMA”:http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=88757&printmode=1, and that it publishes “articles attacking drug price controls”:http://www.google.com/cobrand?q=drug+prices&sa.x=0&sa.y=0&sa=Google+Search&cof=AWPID%3A199a028c5792299b%3B&domains=techcentralstation.com&sitesearch=techcentralstation.com remarkably frequently. More generally, I don’t understand how anybody who wants to preserve their intellectual credibility could voluntarily sign up to participate in the echo chamber, or indeed to be a “useful idiot”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000853.html providing it with cover. Some self-proclaimed libertarians clearly disagree (as, in fairness, do some sincere ones, such as Arnold Kling).

{ 37 comments }

1

Dylan 10.12.04 at 5:13 pm

I find the scorn around here for the commercial aspects of TCS somewhat hard to understand. Do you think any of the authors are writing things they don’t sincerely believe? How is this materially different from they NYT paying some outsider to write an ideological op-ed?

Yes, TCS is funded by people with an agenda, and (presumably) doesn’t publish anything that disagrees with that agenda. But it’s hard to see why something published on TCS is inherently more dishonest or worthy of approbation than a guest piece in National Review or the Nation.

2

bull 10.12.04 at 5:29 pm

How is the echo chamber any different from economists acting as expert witnesses? The industrial org/antitrust crowd makes a good deal of money from witnessing. If you testify or echo in accordance with your principles, there should be no problem. Not that that’s an insignificant if.

3

Henry 10.12.04 at 5:31 pm

_Do you think any of the authors are writing things they don’t sincerely believe?_

From “The Washington Monthly”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0312.confessore.html

bq. All of these positions are, in theory, perfectly compatible with Glassman’s generally libertarian, anti-regulatory politics. But in at least one area–telecommunications–the only discernable consistency to Glassman’s opinions is the degree to which they track those of AT&T, the original sponsor of TCS. During 2001, in a string of columns and in an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Glassman criticized legislation that would have relaxed the requirement that regional Bells rent their phone lines to other companies, including AT&T, seeking to offer local services to the Bells’ customers. Identifying himself as a journalist, think tank fellow, and host of TCS–but not disclosing the Web site’s sponsorship by AT&T–Glassman told Congress that the bill, known as Tauzin-Dingell, would “kill” the Bells’ competitors. Though this was perhaps the only area of policy in which he favored more government regulation, and though his position was similar to that of congressional Democrats and liberal public interest groups, Glassman argued his was actually the true expression of free market principles. “I have devoted much of my professional career to advocating deregulatory, free-market solutions to economic and social problems,” he insisted. “I know deregulation when I see it, and the Tauzin-Dingell bill is not deregulation.”

When the NYT publishes articles that are designed to further its commercial interests, or the commercial interests of its advertisers rather than some minimal notion of the general public interest, it should be given grief. But it surely does this an awful lot less than TCS. Confessore does a good job in arguing that TCS is about _nothing but_ furthering the interests of its corporate sponsors. It’s run by a lobbying group – by flacks. And when it defends controls on drug importation from Canada it is surely making an argument that’s near impossible to square either with free market advocacy or with libertarianism.

4

sd 10.12.04 at 6:29 pm

Henry wrote:

“And when it defends controls on drug importation from Canada it is surely making an argument that’s near impossible to square either with free market advocacy or with libertarianism.”

Hogwash. Aside from the crazy anarchist fringe of the libertarian movement, almost everyone who believes in and advocates for free market capitalism recognizes that there are some legitimate government functions, and that one of those is protecting property rights.

Big Pharma is rightly worried that if drug re-importation is allowed then US prices will fall sufficiently to make the drug business unprofitable. The only way out of that trap is to refuse to sell drugs at a discount in Canada. But Canada is a sovereign nation that could simply break the patent rights for pharmaceuticals. If it did so, then the US government would have to either ban reimportation again, or effectively choose not to protect the property rights of the drug companies.

Now perhaps you buy in to the empty headed argument that say that we shouldn’t protect patent rights – that information want to be free, dude – and that therefore we’d be better off with the new drug pipeline that would result if Merck all of a sudden had the same gross product margins as Hormel. Fine, live in that fantasyland if you’d like. But in the past society has made a deal with the drug companies – you invest massive amounts of capital at risk, incurring hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D costs – and in return we’ll give you monopoly profits on the fruits of your R&D for a limited period of years. If all of a sudden we break that bargain (and allowing drug reimportation from Canada would do exactly that), then even people who generally favor a less intrusive government are perfectly within the bounds of intellectual consistency to cry foul.

Maybe you think the drug companies get too sweet a deal. Fine – lobby for laws reducing the length of patents on drugs, or for laws allowing the reimportation of drugs, that go into development AFTER today. The drug companies will set their R&D budgets accordingly, and you’ll get the future pace of biomedical advancement you deserve. But to change the rules of the game now, after a fortune in capital has already been invested in developing our current pharmacopia, is nothing more than theft.

5

Henry 10.12.04 at 6:49 pm

SD – you clearly don’t recognize it, but the argument you are making (and indeed any reasonable argument I’m familiar with about the granting of temporary monopoly rights on drugs or other products) is a market failure argument. Cf Schumpeter. Think about it a little – “intellectual property” is not property in the strong sense of the word – it’s a government granted temporary monopoly. On what basis is the alteration of that monopoly, “theft”? Surely not on the basis of libertarian theory or free market theory – hence my point. I’m not saying that you can’t construct a reasonable argument against banning the reimportation of drugs – I’m saying that it’s hard to see how to do it on the basis of libertarian theory. As far as I can see, your argument doesn’t even start to do what you think it does.

6

Carolos Obscuros 10.12.04 at 6:55 pm

But to change the rules of the game now, after a fortune in capital has already been invested in developing our current pharmacopia, is nothing more than theft.

Brilliantly put, but maybe a bit too intellectually challenging for many of the Crooked Timber community. Their Mandy Rice Davies approach to any argument made in Tech Central Station (“Well they would, wouldn’t they?”) doesn’t accommodate such demanding cognitive tasks as actually examining what the other guy has to say and determining whether the other guy might have a point. Why argue, when smear and innuendo will pull in the punters much more effectively?

Especially when you’re preaching to the converted anyhow.

7

Sebastian Holsclaw 10.12.04 at 7:17 pm

Sure the Candadian reimportation question is a market failure. Canada dictates a price which reflects failes to compensate research costs. Their lower price in Canada is annoying to people who have to pay for the research costs in America.

8

Robin Green 10.12.04 at 7:23 pm

Changing the rules of the game is theft? Why, then, Congress is engaged in theft all the time whenever it passes a new law affecting investors… oh wait, that’s what libertarians believe already.

If “libertarians” would stop making such silly, overblown arguments we might actually be able to have a serious discussion. As it is I just can’t take them seriously.

9

Cranky Observer 10.12.04 at 7:30 pm

> Big Pharma is rightly worried that
> if drug re-importation is allowed
> then US prices will fall
> sufficiently to make the drug
> business unprofitable. The only way
> out of that trap is to refuse to
> sell drugs at a discount in Canada.

That would be fine if we were talking about sales in the US vs. Haiti. But there is no substantial difference between the economies of the US and Canada, and essentially zero non-governmental transportation and transaction costs.

Therefore, the difference in price between the two must be a result of some sort of market failure, to which arbitrage is a fully justified response. Quashing that arbitrage pretty much exposes Big Pharma (sorry Rush) for what they are: rent seekers.

Cranky

10

Locutor 10.12.04 at 7:36 pm

And, right on cue, here come the brave White Knights to the rescue of poor little damsel-in-distress, Big Pharma.

Pharma lobbies, the whores in Washington lap up the cream, and the consumers and citizens of the U.S. get screwed.

Keep fightin’ for that helpless underdog, White Knights! You’ll make Grover Norquist proud.

11

john b 10.12.04 at 8:09 pm

Big Pharma is rightly worried that if drug re-importation is allowed then US prices will fall sufficiently to make the drug business unprofitable. The only way out of that trap is to refuse to sell drugs at a discount in Canada. But Canada is a sovereign nation that could simply break the patent rights for pharmaceuticals. If it did so, then the US government would have to either ban reimportation again, or effectively choose not to protect the property rights of the drug companies.

Based on the argument above, wouldn’t it be best to allow imports, see whether the drug companies raised Canadian prices or not, (if so) see whether the Canadian government broke the drug companies’ patents or not (it would be left open to enormous WTO penalties if it did), and then ban drug imports if and only if Canada did break the patents and therefore its treaty obligations?

I’d be delighted if SD or Sebastian or anyone else on the drug companies’ side could explain why this wouldn’t work.

12

Sebastian Holsclaw 10.12.04 at 8:49 pm

“Based on the argument above, wouldn’t it be best to allow imports, see whether the drug companies raised Canadian prices or not, (if so) see whether the Canadian government broke the drug companies’ patents or not (it would be left open to enormous WTO penalties if it did), and then ban drug imports if and only if Canada did break the patents and therefore its treaty obligations?”

How can drug companies raise the price set by the Canadian government?

They have already threatened to break the patents.

Which treaty obligations?

The WTO organization would do what?

Your premises have some holes.

13

Sebastian Holsclaw 10.12.04 at 8:52 pm

“Therefore, the difference in price between the two must be a result of some sort of market failure, to which arbitrage is a fully justified response. Quashing that arbitrage pretty much exposes Big Pharma (sorry Rush) for what they are: rent seekers.”

Your ‘therefore’ is missing a couple of things. The main one being that the Canadian government sets the price. That isn’t a ‘market failure’ in any normal sense of the word. I think the phrase you might be looking for is ‘government price control’ except for the fact that recognizing the proper term destroys your argument.

14

jet 10.12.04 at 9:10 pm

Attacking the oppoenents ethos instead of countering their logos sure opened you up to Sebastian.

Save your fallicies for the voters, people who read blogs are a tad bit more critical.

15

abb1 10.12.04 at 9:41 pm

The main one being that the Canadian government sets the price.

The Canadian government (which is an entity representing Canadian people) freely negotiates the drug prices with the Pharma. IOW, in this case the Canadians have chosen to negotiate as a group rather than individualy.

Why would it be a problem for The Market? After all there is no coercion – individual Canadians are allowed to travel to the US and negotiate their drug prices individually there – this should make The Market happy.

16

Henry 10.12.04 at 9:42 pm

Sebastian – the point I’m trying to make (which is a fairly straightforward one, I think) is that _any_ intellectual property rights represent a sort of response to market failure – there is no straightforward way to figure out the “appropriate” rate of profits to maximize the efficiency of investment in innovation. The solution is to grant a limited monopoly to address the market failure that would result if there was no protection of ideas – but economics can’t tell us very much that is useful about the scope or extent that this monopoly should have. Economics can point to the problem, but can’t provide clear and compelling answers. Under the circumstances there is no _ex ante_ reason whatsoever to claim that the US system of IP rights is in any sense of the word efficient (and a preponderance of empirical evidence to suggest that the US IP system is more a product of rent-seeking activities than by market competition or Pigouvian efforts by government to maximize general welfare).

“Carolos obscuros” – do you notice a certain (perhaps unintended) irony in the relationship between the substance of your post and the manner in which you argue it?

17

Pedro 10.12.04 at 9:58 pm

Henry,

I was going to point out that obtuse and dismissive ‘obscurus’ probably hadn’t detected said irony.

18

Sebastian Holsclaw 10.12.04 at 10:00 pm

“Under the circumstances there is no ex ante reason whatsoever to claim that the US system of IP rights is in any sense of the word efficient (and a preponderance of empirical evidence to suggest that the US IP system is more a product of rent-seeking activities than by market competition or Pigouvian efforts by government to maximize general welfare).”

Yet under the circumstances it is absolutely clear that the Canadian government’s policy of trying to price very close to marginal costs per pill cannot possibly pay for the research costs.

So whether or not there is an ex ante reason to believe that the US system is ideally efficient, it is completely obvious that the Canadian system is much worse if you value new drug research. And since we are in fact talking about Canadian drug prices instead of a theoretical system of repaying drug companies for their research, that is important.

“After all there is no coercion…”

Sure if breaking the patent that you had to spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on so that your rival can sell the product with zero research costs and drive you out of business doesn’t count as coercion.

19

baa 10.12.04 at 10:11 pm

I feel sure I have troubled CTers before on this topic, but I am trying to understand the point here, so I hope you will indulge me.

Case A: I write a book, and Mr. X steals half my inventory and re-sells it. We say “we want to preserve the incentive to book-writing,” and insitute a right to property. If Mr. X steals my book, he goes to jail.

Case B: I write a book, and Mr. X xeroxes 1000 copies and sells them. We say “we want to preserve the incentive to book writing” and institute a right to property. If Mr. X xeroxes my book for resale, he goes to jail.

Henry, you seem to be suggesting that case b, but not case a, represents a response to market failure. But in both cases, it seems we would be hard pressed to justify the level of property rights that maximize the efficiency of investment in innovation. Am I missing something here?

20

Henry 10.12.04 at 10:28 pm

bq. the Canadian government’s policy of trying to price very close to marginal costs per pill

Evidence for this (preferably not from the drug companies themselves or their advocates)? I’m asking more for curiousity value than anything else – as stated, I don’t see how anyone can argue for the protection of IP from a free market /libertarian point of view, which is where the argument started. I take it, from the way that you frame your argument that you agree, at least in part. You can make an efficiency based argument – but it’s about which form of government intervention to fix the market is better or worse under the circumstances (and your idea of what constitutes ‘efficiency’ is liable to be affected by your material interests as drug producer, drug consumer, provider of health insurance or whatever, given the lack of any compelling benchmarks).

baa – I’d agree with you – but the point is that libertarians (at least those whom I’ve usually argued with – I’d be interested to hear about different viewpoints) tend to proceed from the starting point that property rights are in some way natural – and it’s rather hard to make that claim for a kind of ‘property’ which is effectively a government-granted temporary monopoly. The core libertarian arguments for property rights, as I understand them, aren’t based on efficiency (although they frequently go along with the empirical belief that private property rights are more efficient). Adam Smith, as you’ll recall, tended to be somewhat sterner towards such monopolies than many of his latter-day epigones.

21

john b 10.12.04 at 10:53 pm

How can drug companies raise the price set by the Canadian government?

“We won’t sell you any more drugs unless the price is above X”.

They have already threatened to break the patents.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean they will.

Which treaty obligations?

I thought the most recent WTO round, and NAFTA, both bound participants to respect IP rights. Hence China’s crackdowns on piracy, and the reluctance of developing-world pharma companies to produce generic versions of patented drugs.

The WTO organization would do what?

Allow the US to impose tariff barriers against Canada, as it has in backing the EU against some of the US’s more outrageous excesses of mercantilism and protectionism.

Your premises have some holes.

Still?

22

john b 10.12.04 at 10:58 pm

Baa: the difference between case A and case B centres around intuitive moral beliefs. People (+/-) everywhere have a strong sense that case A is wrong. Most people do not have a strong sense that case B is wrong.

If you want to convince someone that an act of IP piracy is wrong, then you need to actually explain why – this normally requires utilitarian arguments.

If you want to convince someone that an act of physical property theft is wrong, however, then you merely need to phrase it in a way that makes clear that stealing-as-most-people-understand-the-term is involved.

23

Sebastian Holsclaw 10.12.04 at 11:09 pm

“I thought the most recent WTO round, and NAFTA, both bound participants to respect IP rights. Hence China’s crackdowns on piracy, and the reluctance of developing-world pharma companies to produce generic versions of patented drugs.”

I think you are incorrect. That has been the sticking point for all sorts of talks, but I am completely unaware of any such agreement that would minimize the effectiveness of such threats as are the subject here.

Which would tend to mean that the WTO would not impose or allow sanctions.

“They have already threatened to break the patents.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean they will.”

Do you work in a company? No large company could afford to take the risk that a major government would take such an action and bankrupt them unless the company had no other choice. Since, at the moment, they can charge Americans for the cost of research, it would be foolhardy to risk otherwise. I would put the risk at somewhere in the 30-40% range, but even if it were only 5% it would be an unacceptable risk for a company.

24

john b 10.12.04 at 11:29 pm

No large company could afford to take the risk that a major government would take such an action and bankrupt them unless the company had no other choice. Since, at the moment, they can charge Americans for the cost of research, it would be foolhardy to risk otherwise.

Yes, I do work for a company; it’s one of the leading global healthcare consulting firms, as it happens.

Anyway, your point isn’t relevant. If your conjecture that refusing to sell to the Canucks would be the only way that pharma companies could maintain profitability in the US if cross-border imports were allowed is true, then they would refuse to sell to the Canucks. Canada is a nice market to have, but it’s not one of the global pharma firms’ 7 key target markets.

If Canada were *then* to break the patents – even if no WTO rules were broken – the US would have a strong moral case for banning the import of pirated drugs from Canada (just as it bans the import of pirated clothes from Malaysia, while allowing legitimate clothes).

25

Sebastian Holsclaw 10.12.04 at 11:42 pm

“If Canada were then to break the patents – even if no WTO rules were broken – the US would have a strong moral case for banning the import of pirated drugs from Canada (just as it bans the import of pirated clothes from Malaysia, while allowing legitimate clothes).”

And the company would care about the strong US moral case while its profits went down the tubes while it tried to push the bills through? If you don’t think that is relevant, I suspect you don’t understand the idea of profit very well.

I note also you rely on ‘moral’ case now….

26

asg 10.12.04 at 11:45 pm

Just as food for thought, here’s a fairly recent Cato Institute policy analysis endorsing the lifting of the reimportation ban (although the author argues that it can be done right or done wrong, and suggests that the Senate bill likely to pass would be the latter) — http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-521es.html

… and here’s a shorter article with the main points: http://www.cato.org/research/articles/pilon-041011.html

27

Nicholas Weininger 10.13.04 at 12:09 am

The claim that libertarians all, or almost all, view property rights as natural rather than efficiency-based is false. Many of us would reject that dichotomy completely, for one thing. For another, there are plenty of consequentialist libertarians, some quite radical, who think about property rights in efficiency terms as well as natural rights terms. See for example David Friedman, whose _Law’s Order_ contains very nice discussions of the efficiency of both traditional property law and IP law, and who is a serious, radical anarchocapitalist. At the other end of the radicalism spectrum you have people like Hayek and Eugene Volokh, of course.

Also there are some libertarians who believe IP rights are natural. Among these are some who believe that since they are natural they ought to be perpetual and complete. For an extreme example of this look up Andrew Galambos.

That said, IP rights do tend to be much *harder* to defend than ordinary property rights from a libertarian viewpoint. Which is why there are very large factions on both sides; it’s one of the Big Internal Debates, like abortion or the Iraq war. For a nice summation of the anti-IP position see Stephan Kinsella’s stuff at http://www.stephankinsella.com.

28

anon cynic 10.13.04 at 12:18 am

I think I see something of a prisoners dilemma here — it’s in every country’s short-term interest to either not enforce drug patents or negotiate low prices.

But if nobody enforces patents, in theory, innovative drugs like Via_gra and Pro_pecia (names mangled due to ct’s spam filter) won’t be produced. Whether alternative systems of funding, such as the US government funding something like half of US pharma research through NIH and the state university systems, can produce useful drugs is unknown.

Fortunately for the rest of the world, the system has an out: the US can’t refuse to enforce drug patents because drug companies own much of Congress, and they can’t negotiate lower rates because (unlike the rest of the major drug-consuming countries) they don’t have a national healthcare system.

So, the US is the perpetual patsy under this system. The reimportation ban is necessary to the continuance of this system.
Sebastian proposes no alternative but that this should continue indefinitely.

I have another idea:
The US lifts the reimportation ban, and US prices drop. The pharma companies either convince the world that the patent system is the only way to fund drug research, or they fail and the world tries some other funding system.

Given the advertising budgets of drug companies, I have no doubt that they will succeed. They have allies in anyone else who depends on government monopolies, such as proprietary software companies, movie and record companies, etc.

29

John Quiggin 10.13.04 at 12:35 am

We had a lengthy debate about these issues here, which I think got a bit further towards clarifying the question than has this one.

30

Henry 10.13.04 at 1:01 am

Thanks Nicholas for the clarification.

31

Sandwichman 10.13.04 at 2:00 am

The thing that struck me about the piece from the NYT is that the phrase “intellectual echo chamber of economists” would appear to have come from PhRMA’s own budget documents, unless that was a disingenuous juxtaposition of quotes by the article’s author.

Those on this thread who have commented on the echo chamber remark appear to take such a formulation in stride, as if participating in a closed discourse is o.k. as long as you sincerely believe in what you’re getting paid to say.

It’s not o.k. It’s pernicious. I’ve worked as an expert witness in arbitrations and that’s not the same as the public relations intellectual echo chamber. In a legal process the other side has its expert witnesses, too. But the point of an echo chamber is to create the illusion that THERE IS ONLY ONE SIDE.

Anyone who sincerely believes (“in accordance with their principles”) that the other side, whoever they may be, has no case whatsoever and doesn’t deserve even an opportunity to be heard is most likely a dolt and a hack to begin with. Or perhaps has become one with practice.

The problem with politics today… the problem also with the academic disciplines and with the entertainment/information industry… that is to say the problem with public discourse is either that it has become or has never evolved from a series of closed intellectual echo chambers. This perhaps also explains why litigation is so rampant. At least in the legal process one has a formal, procedural right to have experts for one’s own side present their case.

Might not one be innately suspicious of self-described “libertarians” who flock together in collectives of remarkable uniformity?

32

jet 10.13.04 at 1:01 pm

Someone needs to make a textbook out of Sebastian and Henry debating and use it to teach economics.

33

baa 10.13.04 at 1:22 pm

Henry,

It’s true that (many) libertarians will argue for property rights are natural. But as Nicholas suggests above, not all. Further, it’s not clear that a “natural” definition of property rights will necessarily treat IP more harshly that “regular” P. You are of course right that pharmaceutical IP is a monopoly of use protected by state sanctions. But so, I think, is regular P.

John B,

I’m not sure you correctly capture most people’s intuitive moral beliefs. If I re-typed “Prisoner of Azkaban” and started selling my own copies, I imagine many people would think I was ripping JK Rowling off. What’s at issue here is a strong dichotomy between intellectual property and physical property. I’m looking to see this difference justified. John Quiggin has previously justified the difference based on the status of IP/ideas as “public goods.”

Also, as an aside, one of the properties of the new reimportation bill (the Snowe bill, I believe) is that a) it allows importation from the EU (definitely a key pharam market) and it attmepts to prevent pharma from cutting off supply to ex-US markets. Reimportation under that set of rules really does seem threatening to pharma, requiring them to chose between a massive price increase in the EU/Canada (and the backlash that would entail), or losing the profitability of the US market.

Sebastian,

Your supposition about the risk-averseness of pharma companies on patent issues strikes at least this industry insider as 100% correct. Of course, it’s very hard to distinguish pharma fear of patent breaking and simple hard bargaining by large buyers. In practice, pharma has resisted both (hence the attempt to restrict the power of large buyers in the new Medicare bill. Just as an aside, I have anecdotally seen convergence of the price at launch for new drugs in Canada and the US.

34

Antoni Jaume 10.13.04 at 5:24 pm

Baa, the question with pharmaceutical intellectual property is not one of your two cases, but, in my view, a third case:

Case C: I write a book about theme Z, and Mr. X write another book on theme Z (without any input from you). We say “we want to preserve the incentive to book writing” and institute a right to property. If Mr. X publish his book, he goes to jail.

DSW

35

Senastian Holsclaw 10.13.04 at 7:08 pm

In the case of generics or knock-offs “without any input from you” isn’t correct. It would be more correct to say “after examining your book on theme Z, I write a book on theme Z which relies substantially on the discoveries you revealed in your book on theme Z.”

36

Robin Green 10.14.04 at 3:02 am

after examining your book on theme Z, I write a book on theme Z which relies substantially on the discoveries you revealed in your book on theme Z.

Which of course is quite legal.

37

Antoni Jaume 10.16.04 at 2:41 pm

Holsclaw, you lier. You purposely mix in my case a situation that my parenthetical remark discards. The fact that cases D, E, F, G, thru Z and whatever else may require law protection is different from my C case. If two pharmaceutical laboratories target one disease, they perfectly can arrive at the same drug without any information sharing, voluntary or not. That same problem arise with computer algorithms if they are patented.

DSW

Comments on this entry are closed.