IMPROVEMENT TO DRUG PATENTS AND EARLY INFECTION WARNING SYSTEM
The pharmaceutical industry depends crucially upon patents, and I propose a modest change which could result in delivery of large quantities at low prices instead of small quantities at high ones, without reducing incentives for investment in research.I also propose an early warning system for infections that could spread widely.
William Kingston, former Professor of Innovation in Trinity College, Dublin
- Recover (Improve health & economic system resilience), such as: Best protective interventions, especially for vulnerable populations, Avoid/mitigate negative second-order consequences, Integrate true costs of pandemic risk into economic systems
The problems of the patent system which I am working on -- and proposals for dealing with them - are dealt with in my 2010 book, Beyond Intellectual Property: Matching Information Protection to Innovation (Edward Elgar)
Research in early warning of tsunamis could point the way towards a similar worldwide system for advance warning of infections.
Governments have little interest in, or understanding of patents, so their laws have been effectively made by the firms which will benefit from them. Research shows how chemical inventions get a third of all the profits resulting from patents, leaving the other third to all other technologies put together.
The early warning system proposed might well fit into the portfolio of the WHO.
- Proof of Concept: A venture or organisation building and testing its prototype, research, product, service, or business/policy model, and has built preliminary evidence or data
- Crowd Sourced Service / Social Networks
- Imaging and Sensor Technology
Patents deliver a public good in that without them information is a 'commons' which it would not be economic to invest in to try to turn it into reality.
Improvement in the patent system must consequently also be a public good.
Anything that could be done to develop an early warning system for infections that could spread, would equally be a public good.
If my patent solution is put into effect, it will benefit the world by delivering cheaper drugs without any lowering of incentive to search for them. If my proposal about early warning of infections works, it could save the world from future repetitions of the Covid tragedy.
If either of my proposals works, it will not be for me to scale the impact.
India became one of the world's leading producers of generic drugs because it refused to join the Paris Convention when it became independent in 1947. If a single country were to put my patent proposal into its law, it could benefit comparably, which I would regard as success for my idea.
- Ireland
- Ireland
The main barrier to beneficial legal change is the extent to which laws are shaped by those who will benefit from them, of which the 1952 US patent Act is a vivid example. See my most recent book, 'How Capitalism Destroyed Itself' (Peter Lang, 2020).
- Individual
Trinity College. Dublin
W
I hope that the Challenge will be willing to provide such a small amount for two pieces of 'blue sky' research which could have enormous consequences, comparable to the £500 which the Rockefeller Institute provided to Howard Florey, which led to the innovation of Fleming's discovery of Penicillin.
If funded, it would be very helpful to have access to pharmaceutical members to explore the patent aspect of the proposal with their relevant experts.
Professor