[mbrubeck]

And yet even pharmaceutical companies are now facing problems caused by too many patents (though I'm sure none of them want to abolish patents completely the way many in software do). Michael Heller from Columbia Law School writes about new therapies that companies can't bring to market because they involve dozens or hundreds of different genes or compounds, each patented separately; he argues that this will become more common because of trends in medical science. He also cites some interesting examples like http://www.goldenrice.org/ which actually did get produced, but only because they formed a non-profit foundation and basically shamed companies into licensing their patents as charity for the developing world.

Many, many more details in Heller's book and in this Econtalk interview:

http://www.gridlockeconomy.com/

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/11/heller_on_gridl.htm...