Applying Strategy: When Patents Don't Do Anyone Any Good, Try Creative Capitalism
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The Law of Unintended Consequences
Pass a law. Do good things.
The US Congress wanted more University research to be commercialized. It also wanted professors and the companies they started to get rich. The Bayh-Dole Act, passed in 1980, intended that federally funded research leave the public sector and enter the private sector. Ownership would transfer from public entities to private entities (Heller, 59). The un-intended consequence? Less business is getting done. Fewer inventions and discoveries are put to use because scientists are protecting their inventions instead of sharing them. Now, this isn't about keeping scientists from benefiting from their discoveries. It is about figuring out a way that they keep their discoveries and put them to use.
What to do? We learned how to proceed in this case in Kindergarten. Share. It is as simple as that.
Let's say a new drug is envisioned by a pharmaceutical company. It includes tests that include thirty different genes, all patented by different organizations. Getting all thirty companies to agree to the pharmaceutical company's request for access for testing is just about impossible. Everyone wants to be the hold-out, the last one to agree, because theoretically, the last one to agree makes a lot more money than everyone else. The problem is, the musical chair like dance is so complex and time consuming, the drug company says "I'm getting out of the gene business" rather that complete the negotiations. Everyone loses, especially the poor person who has the disease, but doesn't have a drug to treat it because all those patent holders can't agree on how to work together.
We already said the word: Share. It looks to me like the law has to change. Now would be a good time.
Bill Gates' Creative Capitalism
Stanford professor creates unlimited supply of precursor to drugs that treat malaria. No one will support his research. Enter Bill Gates Foundation (Hamm). $42.6 million later, they're on the way to producing the drug. The Foundation acquired corporate support to figure out how to develop the active agent and get it ready for production.
That's quite a story. It could work in genomics. A third party acts as intermediary between all the owners of the different gene patents. They figure out how to work together. New treatments for diseases are created. Everyone makes money. No one makes a disproportionate profit. Mankind benefits. Everyone wins.
It could happen.
Reference
Hamm, Steve. 'Creative Capitalism' Versus Malaria. BusinessWeek. 2 February 2009. 083. http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2009/01/the_world_vs_ma.html
Heller, Michael. The Gridlock Economy. How Too Much Ownership Wreaks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Cost Lives. Basic Books. 2008.