

Non-Indians have benefited most from patent regime in India - realrocker
http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/nonindians-have-benefited-most-from-patent-regime-in-india-novartis-ceo-told/article5068237.ece?homepage=true

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belorn
It is a strange fact that government grants and _enforces_ monopolies on
molecules that are designed to save lives, monopolies which then lowers the
supply. One would naively think that society enforcement arms would prefer
that sick people had access to medicine, rather than erect pay wall barriers
that dooms some poor people to a slow and painful death.

I wonder what the majority of the Indian people would prefer. What percentage
of citizens of the Republic of India can actually afford the products of
companies like Novartis AG when they demand patent licenses, and how much
taxes would be free up by abolishing the patent office and patent enforcement?

~~~
icebraining
_It is a strange fact that government grants and enforces monopolies on
molecules that are designed to save lives, monopolies which then lowers the
supply._

This is a simplistic view. After the molecule was discovered, the patent
certainly lowers the supply, but if the patent is what enables the molecule to
be discovered in the first place, then it actually _increases_ the supply.

Of course, whether the claim holds is questionable, but it's not like these
drugs where flowing from the trees until the bad government came and limited
it.

As for the taxes, I don't know the Indian patent office, but the US
counterpart _makes_ money.

~~~
belorn
By the time the patent application is being sought, the invention is already
made. As such, the patent is only there to encourage more inventions. The
question is then, should a democratic countrey give out such monopolies, while
knowing the harm it _will do_ to a majority population that won't gain any
benefit for 20 years, for a _maybe_ increase in new inventions?

Or to put it in concert fashion, should a farmer sacrifice a family member to
a sickness today, just so he might be able in 20+ years buy a generic version
when the price has gone down? If put to a vote, would the majorly of the
citizen inside a country vote to vow never allow anyone die just because they
are too poor to pay the medicine, or do they rather want the _chance_ of
increased new medicines which only a small minority can afford in the next 20+
years?

What would the democratic vote say? My bet would be on the living and not on
the patents.

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kshatrea
Tell you what. Let us enumerate the number of new advanced drugs that Non-
Indians brought to India. That list will be long; the worst part is that all
those technical drug lists may turn out to have at least one Indian working on
them, our emigration is huge. To take a technical comparison, what would have
happened if Satya Nadella & Sundar Pichai had stayed back over here? Anyway,
that's an argument for another day.

To get back to the topic, Non-Indians may benefit from the patent regime; but
they got the products here in the first place. In short, the "refutation" is a
simple quid pro quo: the foreigners manufacture most drugs, and they get the
most patents. There is no argument here on whether patents are bad, it is a
stupid defense of an idiotic method of patent grants. Most Indian pharma firms
have no meaningful R&D, they make their profits on generics. Socialists like
the present government will never understand a free market, if they want these
expensive drugs for free, they have to pay for them somehow. Not by abusing a
bad patent system which is protectionist. Either they should abolish patents
(which is the best way) and take the results, or they start applying patents
the ostensible way they are meant to be applied, which is to pay attention to
whether the pharma breakthrough is big enough to merit a patent, or not.

~~~
JamesArgo
Ahh, to live in a free society, where men and woman can own their ideas and
stop all others from thinking and acting on similar lines. What liberty we
enjoy. How free we are. We own matter, energy and land, yet we can't use them
in the manner we see fit, for we may infringe on someone's "intellectual
property". We may think thoughts others have thought before, and what an awful
theft that would be. Why, For the market to function, the government must
grant monopolies on ideas. In general government granted monopolies are bad,
but in this particular case...

~~~
icebraining
That's an odd reply to a post that says "they should abolish patents (which is
the best way)".

~~~
JamesArgo
I was agreeing with him with a bit of sarcasm, but it does seem (looking at
it) that I was replying to him with sarcasm. I apologize. Patents make me so
angry my brain deactivates.

------
r0h1n
As the OP has mentioned, this is the Indian government's response to Novartis.
Here is the background:

1\. In April, India's Supreme Court denied Novartis' patent application for
its cancer drug Glivec. They reasoned that Novartis was "evergreening" the
drug, and thus did not deserve a patent for a new drug -
[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-04-02/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-04-02/news/38218279_1_glivec-
patent-office-fresh-patent)

2\. Novartis complained, naturally - [http://www.novartis.com/newsroom/media-
releases/en/2013/1689...](http://www.novartis.com/newsroom/media-
releases/en/2013/1689290.shtml)

[Edited: a couple of typos]

------
hartator
It makes me uncomfortable. It feels racist against non-Indians people. The
same go with these posts make a difference between US and non-US citizen for
privacy stuff.

~~~
realrocker
This a response to a letter written by Norvatis accusing Government of India
of discrimination towards Non-Indians.

------
rikacomet
As realrocker said, this is only a reply to Novartis, after they failed to
apply evergreening. It was a major pro-poor victory. If I remember correctly,
it brought down the cost of Tuberclosis drug from Rs 10k to 350 Rupees only (I
think that figure was per week/month maybe)

Nevertheless, indeed non-Indians have benefited (no offense) but that is due
to people in India, specially Entrepreneurs waking up late to importance of
IP.

Just Yesterday, I was attending the NASSCOM EMERGENCE CONCLAVE, where Founder
of Naukri.com (India's biggest job portal) was speaking.

He revealed that it was Naukri.com _FOUNDERS_ who first digitally _collected_
trademark data in India, in 1989, which was about 80,000 applications, the
biggest share out of total 6 lakh pending applications. They sent it to each
pharmaceutical company, and made a huge profit out of it. Prior to founding
Naukri.com

Though we are talking about patents here, that reference gives us a pretty
good idea about the situation in India, in 1990s, when most of IP data was
still in fat registers. He hired around 7-8 young college goers at intern
prices, had them skip classes, and in 3 weeks collected two big bags full of
registers. Which they then put throw a computer they got to use (pre pentium
generation) from 10 pm to 4 am.

Today, the pending copyright applications stand at 14 lakh

1 lakh = 100,000 : For quick reference.

