On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Dan Reese wrote:
> Again, the company wouldn't have any motivation because no one will pay
> $10B to the company if I have the same cure "on sale" for $1B two weeks
> later.
It's interesting that you blasted socialized health care in your earlier
message as having no motivation to perform since it's a monopoly. But now you
claim that a company has no motivation *without* patent monopolies.
There are several scenarios in which my solution works; I'll leave you to work
the others out, since they're simple applications of free market economics.
The cancer patients and insurance companies gather together their B dollar
bounty. They contact well regarded pharm company and offer them $B if they
can produce a working cancer cure within a certain amount of time. P consults
its accountants and engineers, who claim a C% chance of finding a claim within
the alotted time, at a cost of R dollars. If R/C < B, they accept the
challenge. In fact, if they can work out a function f(R)=C, they can even
maximize their expected profit.
Note that the company profits without any need for "ownership" of the idea.
The patients and insurance companies have already determined that their
investment is worth it, and so wealth is created for them as well. The fact
that everyone else in the world also benefits is frosting on top. Third world
countries, future cancer patients and all the rest can be grateful for the
pharm company and investors, and motivated to likewise put up cash when
they're able.
-J
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