Like he said, there aren’t factories sitting around that can start spinning COVID vaccines out if only parents were removed from them.
Besides, an open patent scheme means that any pharma company can sell the vaccine. And I guarantee that the vast majority of companies that will start doing so will be fly by might operators that will take advantage of desperate countries to sell them crap that will end up killing people and simply damage vaccines in the eyes of people all over the world.
What we really need is for governments and potentially private operators to invest money towards setting up more production capacities among the many major vaccine manufacturers that already exist.
The Indian government, for example, had months to support the Serum Institute’s expansion plans, but simply did not. It’s only now that they’ve agreed to let them sell their vaccines for slightly higher prices of about $5.5 to state governments and about $8 to private entities per dose (although they have still capped the price at $3 for themselves, which is basically a political ploy so they can hand out free vaccines ahead of several elections coming up this year), that has allowed them to start expanding.
What’s happening in India is a massive failure of governance at the federal level which the government is trying to find any excuse to distract from.
> Besides, an open patent scheme means that any pharma company can sell the vaccine. And I guarantee that the vast majority of companies that will start doing so will be fly by might operators that will take advantage of desperate countries to sell them crap that will end up killing people and simply damage vaccines in the eyes of people all over the world.
This is a completely unfounded claim. You have no evidence, no data, etc to back an argument such as this one.
Do you have any evidence suggesting otherwise that doesn't reduce to your dilapidated pessimism?
> And I guarantee that the vast majority of companies that will start doing so will be fly by might operators
By this logic, the generic medicine market should have already collapsed. Drug safety standards apply even when patent restrictions don't. As do trademarks, so you always know whose vaccine you're buying. There's a large and well tested system for ensuring drug safety, and it doesn't depend on patents.
The article has many logical inconsistencies. None of the points made refute Gates' position.
The stockpile of the US would be just as high if the IP were free. They overproduced out of an abundance of caution which from a national point of view certainly made sense.
The only thing that the Serum Institute proves is that if there are production capabilities in development countries, they are used to full effect and IP is not keeping them from anything. OP would have a point if the facilities at the SI would be idling due to licensing issues. Whats keeping them from producing more seems to be predominanlty supply chain issues (which have almost nothing to do with IP).
From what I can see, there are simply no excess production capabilities available (neither in developed nor in development countries) which is the bottleneck.
No, I think Bill Gates does stuff. As Microsoft CEO he was ruthless, clearsighted and goal-oriented. He is that now too, IMO, what's changed is that his goals are now things like eradicating malaria instead of eradicating Borland.
I had in mind whoever wrote that article. Because really, what difference would releasing those patents make. The patents quite plainly aren't the bottleneck. Bill Gates is right, and whoever wrote that article is fighting for effectively nothing.
You can solve a problem. Or learn to live with it. Or find way to diminish that which makes the problem a problem.
The people who are fighting those patents are IMO doing none of that. They're fighting to transform a problem into another problem, and the new problem is as bad as the existing one. Such a pity to see.
If Gates Foundation truly cared about stopping the next pandemic, the strategy we need to embrace is to abolish copyrights and patents.
I think BG just may be blind to how much those are hurting most of the world. His entire life he's lived in an #IdeaPrivilege bubble. From Seattle to Lakeside to Harvard to Redmond. He's always had access to great information.
Most people do not have that, because of #ImaginaryProperty laws. Instead, most people are exposed to ideas in tabloids and shitty tv shows and advertisements and agenda pushing papers.
If this pandemic showed us anything, it's that we need to decentralize intelligence. We should be removing bottlenecks preventing the world's best information from reaching every child on earth. People should have had the information and skillset to be running their own protocols at home testing for COVID-19 last January. Instead everyone was handicapped and had to wait for the CDC to bumble things royally before saying "go figure it out", by which point the pandemic was no longer stoppable.
It's really as simple as that. And no matter how many tens of billions the Gates Foundation spends it can not come close to offsetting the trillions in harm from copyright and patent regimes.
It's not clear to me precisely how that change would lead to that goal. But anyway, he doesn't. It's not on his list of goals.
The goals are, in Wikipedia's words, "to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty across the globe, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology in the U.S."
Sorry, the video in the OP seemed to imply the pandemic preparedness was a goal. Liberating ideas would lead to that goal because we would see a rapid iteration on information, an influx of regional publishers, and the people currently choking down bad information would instantly have access to the best information (in fact, iteration would happen so quickly that the information the poor would have in a decade post liberation would be better than info the rich have today).
> "to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty across the globe, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology in the U.S."
No single thing could help accomplish those goals better than to eliminate Imaginary Property chains. People's brain thrive with great true information and are crippled when fed junk. The question is what is more important to Gates Foundation: accomplishing their stated goals or their own private self-interested goals?
We can't know what he means, or what is in his heart now, but his actions are definitely suspect and he appears to have a bias. I think he should have been imprisoned or fined into oblivion years ago for his anti-competitive actions and gross ethical violations.
Like he said, there aren’t factories sitting around that can start spinning COVID vaccines out if only parents were removed from them.
Besides, an open patent scheme means that any pharma company can sell the vaccine. And I guarantee that the vast majority of companies that will start doing so will be fly by might operators that will take advantage of desperate countries to sell them crap that will end up killing people and simply damage vaccines in the eyes of people all over the world.
What we really need is for governments and potentially private operators to invest money towards setting up more production capacities among the many major vaccine manufacturers that already exist.
The Indian government, for example, had months to support the Serum Institute’s expansion plans, but simply did not. It’s only now that they’ve agreed to let them sell their vaccines for slightly higher prices of about $5.5 to state governments and about $8 to private entities per dose (although they have still capped the price at $3 for themselves, which is basically a political ploy so they can hand out free vaccines ahead of several elections coming up this year), that has allowed them to start expanding.
What’s happening in India is a massive failure of governance at the federal level which the government is trying to find any excuse to distract from.