Ownership rights pose a real danger to scientific progress for the public good.
Intellectual property (IP) requires a strong lead from the government. The David Nutt affair has illustrated the importance of objective analysis of complex social issues. There is a myth about IP, it says that IP rights are as important as our rights in castles, cars and corn oil. It must encourage inventors. In reality, patents often suppress invention rather than promote it. Companies by the patents of potential rivals in order to prevent them being turned into products.
Intellectual property (IP) requires a strong lead from the government. The David Nutt affair has illustrated the importance of objective analysis of complex social issues. There is a myth about IP, it says that IP rights are as important as our rights in castles, cars and corn oil. It must encourage inventors. In reality, patents often suppress invention rather than promote it. Companies by the patents of potential rivals in order to prevent them being turned into products.
Science and innovation in universities are privatized. The boost to commercialize science has overtaken the ‘blue-skies’ research, so knowledge is transformed. We take a patent on knowledge because of our need for profit. For example, 20% of individual human genes have been patented or have been filed for patenting. This has of course a result, research on certain genes is in large numbers restricted to the companies that hold the patents and tests involving them have huge p prices. This is a huge danger to the development of science for the public good.
Science and innovation have nourished our society and economy for years. We need to consider how to balance the needs of science as an industry. For science to continue to flourish, it is necessary that the knowledge is free and widely available. IP rights have the tendency to stifle access to knowledge and the free exchange of ideas that is essential to science.
Science and the many benefits that science has produced have a crucial part in our history and produced improvements to human welfare. We have to recognize the importance of science as an industry and investment in research to national and regional economic development.
The Manchester Manifesto, an international group of experts, explores these problems and points the way to future solutions that will more effectively protect science, innovation and the public good.
I think that we indeed have to reduce the patents on knowledge. We need the knowledge to develop, to make a better world. We use knowledge and science to improve for example our health, if we can’t use the knowledge that we need or we have to pay a huge amount of money for it, we will fail in further developing.
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