But what impetus would drug companies have for researching and developing new drugs, if they're just instantly going to be copied by another company? Why not just sit back and wait for another company to develop them?
Certainly if we abolished IP laws we would need to intentionally fund medical research rather than using the pseudo market based approach (mixed with government subsidy) that we have now. I should say I know little about our current process, but I do believe we could find a way.
It's a weird thought experiment.... if we halted all new drug r&d and instead cheaply distributed all the medicines that we have already invented, how much more people would benefit, and at whose cost? And how long would that "honeymoon phase" last?
