Big Pharma driving the agenda of trade negotiators:
““The USTR’s drug
proposals are an astonishing effort to require other countries to adopt
policies that aren’t in their best interests and lock in policies here that the
Obama administration doesn’t support,” said Frederick Abbott, a Florida State
University law professor and veteran consultant to the World Health
Organization and the United Nations on health and trade issues.”
An excellent survey article on patents:
Boldrin, Michele, and David K. Levine. 2013. "The
Case against Patents." Journal of Economic Perspectives,
27(1): 3-22.; Open Access: https://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2012/2012-035.pdf
Abstract
The case against patents can
be summarized briefly: there is no empirical evidence that they serve to
increase innovation and productivity, unless productivity is identified with
the number of patents awarded—which, as evidence shows, has no correlation with
measured productivity. Both theory and evidence suggest that while patents can
have a partial equilibrium effect of improving incentives to invent, the
general equilibrium effect on innovation can be negative. A properly designed
patent system might serve to increase innovation at a certain time and place.
Unfortunately, the political economy of government-operated patent systems
indicates that such systems are susceptible to pressures that cause the ill
effects of patents to grow over time. Our preferred policy solution is to
abolish patents entirely and to find other legislative instruments, less open
to lobbying and rent seeking, to foster innovation when there is clear evidence
that laissez-faire undersupplies it. However, if that policy change seems too
large to swallow, we discuss in the conclusion a set of partial reforms that
could be implemented.