A Tale of Two Patent Systems: Pharma and IT Square Off in D.C.
February 09, 2007 || Science & Technology
Last Wednesday, Feb 7, Robert Barr, who heads the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology spoke about the current political debate around patent reform, which has mostly stemmed from the differential impacts of the current system on the Biotech/Pharma industries versus the IT industry. Almost none of what is below are my ideas, but rather my regurgitations of Robert’s talk. For the pharmaceutical and biotech companies like Genentech and Merck, patents are lifeblood. These companies spend an estimated $700 million researching, developing and FDA testing to bring a new drug to market. Once all this work has been done, it...
