[GOD_Over_Djinn]

Discoveries like this should be shared with the world - not gatekept by rent-seeking venture capitalists. Wouldn’t you rather be Jonas Salk than Scrooge McDuck?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk

> Salk was immediately hailed as a "miracle worker" when the vaccine's success was first made public in April 1955, and chose to not patent the vaccine or seek any profit from it in order to maximize its global distribution

[chris_t]

Rent-seeking has a technical definition; earning money from things you invented does not meet it. While Salk is obviously an inspiring example, a wise society should happily incentivize the development of useful technology.

[sooheon]

Intellectual monopolies disincentivize development and incentivize rent seeking. Here, rent seeking is legal action and lobbying intended to protect and extend monopolies, instead of advancing science.

Other than economic logic, we have natural experiments to back this up: i.e. the steam engine patent granted to Watt and Boulton in 1772 and its chilling effect on engine duty improvement (and the explosion of progress after patent expiry), and the modern pharmaceutical industry developing most strongly precisely where chemical patents were not granted, in 19th C. continental Europe, and slowing down wherever patent protections were eventually introduced, at the request of rent seeking lobbyists.

https://fee.org/articles/do-patents-encourage-or-hinder-inno...

http://www.dklevine.com/papers/anew09.pdf

[chris_t]

I agree with all of this. The example of the patent on steam engines is fascinating, thank you! It's certainly true government granted monopolies are far from the ideal incentive structure, with many downsides. (And lobbying for EG patent extensions likely IS rent-seeking). Advance market commitments and other systems likely have better characteristics.

I was rather objecting to the misuse of a technical term, and the idea that we should expect all innovation to happen without reasonable incentives.

[sooheon]

Ah gotcha, agreed.

[GOD_Over_Djinn]

There are incentives to developing medical technology beyond the opportunity to become obscenely wealthy. If you do so, you are necessarily depriving some subset of patients that need the treatment. Honestly, I find it pretty unimaginative (and a bit disturbing) that the only “incentive” you can think of for treating sick children is the ability to monetize the treatment - it’s a virtuous endeavor in and of itself. I must say, though, it’s hardly surprising to meet someone with such a worldview on a VC-focused forum.

Edit:

> Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

This aligns neatly with my comment - gatekeeping a medical treatment behind artificially high costs to enrich yourself is the very definition of rent-seeking. I think you’re digging yourself in to a pretty deep philosophical hole here, solely out of some need to nerdsnipe people to reassure yourself of your own intellect.

[xxyyxxyyxxy]

Patents are held by assignees, not the inventors. Inventors do not earn money from patents.

[carterschonwald]

Well said