On Tue, Dec 27, 2005 at 01:25:37AM -0500, Hal Vaughan wrote: > I wonder, how many copyrights or patents do you hold? > > If you're a drug company or a big hardware/software company <...>
Going a bit off-topic here, but having worked in drug development, I can tell you that no drug would be developed by anyone except the government with a 5-year drug patent term. Takes that long just to get through FDA procedures some of the time. Typical time from lab idea to product on the shelf, although it varies a lot, is around 10 years (and a billion dollars). Although I don't think I would support lengthening the patent term, I can tell you from talking to people in the field that the (to them) short term skews drug development decisions towards "blockbuster" drugs that can make a huge amount of money in those 7 years after the drug hits the market. It also skews towards "me too" drugs and slightly-improved versions of existing drugs because those take less time in development. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]