Patent Rights & You

   Perhaps you have never invented or created anything in your life and believe that patent rights have nothing to do with you.  I have found that belief can be very wrong.  Our government created and enforces patent rights.  The foundation of those rights is the belief that if someone has the creativity and perseverance to create a new product or system to benefit the lives of others that they have the sole right to financially benefit from their creation.  That seems fair.  This right is bestowed on both people and corporations.  Patent rights are designed to benefit all and reward the creator of the idea, while improving our quality of life.

   How could you argue with that business concept?  Easy.  The laws that guide patent enforcement are easily corrupted and at a great cost to society.  I think that I am safe to say that whenever corruption can be used to create great wealth for the greedy, it will be.  Would a pharmaceutical company take an action that will ultimately take Medicare away from you, your children and take the long term income away from them?  Oh, yes they would.  Corporate decisions are more and more influenced by quarterly profit reports, rather than long term benefits to the corporation or the society it serves. 

   My favorite example of this abuse to society is being done to you and me by a group of pharmaceutical companies, but the abuse is available to all companies.  Watch for it in your cost of living.  My cost of living is primarily paid by Medicare to AbbVie Corporation (CEO, Richard Gonzales).  You see, I have CLL (Chronic Lymphocyte Leukemia).   The disease would have killed me in 2019 without the AbbVie supplied drug, Imbruvica (ibrutinib).

   A quick history of the pharmaceutical scam would be: Celera Pharmaceuticals developed and patented ibrutinib.  During the FDA approval process, Pharmacyclics, a pharmaceutical company probably better able to manufacture and distribute the product, purchased the patent rights for three million dollars.  This figure is probably in line with the value of a lifesaving drug and the research and development required bringing it to fruition.  The next market transaction was a purchase of the patent rights by Johnson & Johnson (the baby powder folks) for nine hundred and seventy-five million dollars.  I have a hard time seeing the purpose of this transaction, other than giant profits through bilking the public for a lifesaving drug.  I would suspect that the next transaction exceeded J&J’s greatest expectations when they sold the rights to the drug to AbbVie for a whapping twenty-one billion dollars.  As you know, a million is a thousand thousands and a billion is a thousand millions.  So we are talking about a large purchase.  To give a better feel for the size of the purchase, a Japanese Corporation is currently negotiating the purchase of US Steel Corp. for $17.4 billion dollars.  So the Patent Rights enforced by our government must be of great value.  The basic purpose of any government enforced business law is to be a shield for its citizens, not a sword for the greedy.  This law is obviously being perverted.

   AbbVie is having the drug Imbruvica produced in China so there are no manufacturing jobs being created.  Medicare pays AbbVie $195.125.74 per year for my Imbruvica.  My portion of that charge in co-pay is about $3,000 per month, but I don’t have that money available, so I turned the drug down.  “If living were a thing that money can buy, then the rich would live and the poor would die …”      Then comes a phone call from a foundation offering to pay my co-pay.  I asked who funded this foundation and was told “the pharmaceutical manufacturers”.  This funding comes back to AbbVie when the drug is purchased by Medicare along with my co-pay.  This is a monstrous scam on Medicare and will end the program.

  An effective government patent protection law would protect the inventor/creator of the product, as intended.  A single purchase with protections also might be allowed if the marketing of the right allowed the purchase at a maximum of 20% over book value of the protection.  No patent rights to a third purchaser.  This is what your government would look like if it represented you.

Cheers, Old Buz        3/31/2024

“Our Planet can provide for human needs … but not for human greed.” – Mahatma Gandhi

 

20K Today

    

   This little blog reached twenty thousand reads today, March 24^th 2024.  It is read around the world.  Sixty-eight hundred reads in the US.   Sixty-four hundred reads in Singapore.   Eleven hundred reads in Russia.  Eleven hundred reads in Hong Kong.  A thousand reads in France.  The remaining nations have read it less than a thousand times each at this point in time.  I will attempt to increase these numbers in the future, but am proud of the blog right now.

  I do ask myself from time to time, “What is pushing the readership up?”  I try to write it as a Patriot of The Planet, trying not to view the world as a view from one nation state.  This seems to me to be a clearer picture of my environment.  I see myself as a member of no group, with the exception of humanity.  I try very hard to be unbiased.  I accept no sponsorship.  There is hopefully no dollar influence.

   There is a formula in most of my blog posts.  1. Try to find some program that is not functioning well, but is generally accepted.  2. Try to define the problem.  3. Look at alternative and perhaps novel solutions.  Pick a solution that gives the most benefits to the greatest number of people.  If personal greed is the primary driving force behind the action, I normally point this out and attack the status quo for the benefit of the many.

   If I were to try to describe my point of view I would use words like independent, agnostic, mostly liberal, reasonable, logical and in search of truth.  I try to use unbiased data.  The blog is written in America which means I can freely state my point of view with freedom from government interference.  For that I am thankful. 

Happy 20K Day, Old Buz

Iambloggerbuz.blogspot.com

 

“Born an agnostic and with the help of GOD* will remain one.” – Old Buz

*GOD – an acronym (G.O.D.) for Grand Omnipotent DNA – The system (rules) guiding the Universe as researched by science. 

"Border Crisis"

   What is presently called a border crisis is actually a crisis in problem solving.  It is not an immigration problem.  It is actually a problem of economics south of that border.  Thousands of people are not walking a thousand miles with their families to live in The United States.  They are enduring this hardship in hope of improving the living conditions of their families.  They are in search of food and shelter (economic opportunities).  Survival!

   Today’s "border crisis" is an effect, not a cause.  If one attempts to cure an effect, rather than the cause, at best you have a short term solution.  We all know that, but pay little attention.  The people of Mexico, Central or South America would rather stay where they are than walk to The United States.  Their first language is the language of their homeland.  The weather is fine, unless challenged by flooding and Global Warming.  Move to the US and your language becomes the language of an economic underclass.  You or I would walk too if it were a matter of survival for you and your family.

   China built a wall to keep the world out centuries ago.  We have a political party led by a madman seeing this as today’s answer to a problem.  The other party is going along with them with a border security scheme.  The better answer is: cure the cause.  Build a strong economic engine in all of the land south of our border.  All of the resources are there.  All but for adequate capital and a real desire to improve living conditions for all.  The Maquiladora Program failed because it stood for US investment in cheap Mexican labor and profits taken back to the US.  A successful program would benefit the Mexican Nation and its people, driven by a reasonable return on investment.

  Here is my simple solution to the “crisis.”  Convince the two most famous idiot savants in the world (Elon Musk & Jeff Bezos) to combine their net worth of $294 billion (37^th annual Forbes list for 2023) and give birth to The Great American (both continents) Economy.  I refer to them as idiot savants because as wealth producers they are both genius, but for having any empathy for humanity, idiots.

   These two bozos could make the world a better place rather than participating in the childish competition to reach close to space (a competition that the US and the USSR entered into and completed over a half century ago).   When two financial monsters such as Musk & Bezos enter into such a contest, no one benefits. If instead they financed The Great American Economy, south of the border, they would forever have a place in history as great men.  They would be curing the cause of a problem not trying to lessen an effect.  If they continue on their present trajectory they will have the momentary fame of two wealthy dingbats.  If you are reading this Jeff and Elon … REPENT!  (and help good people stay home).

   The economic engine described could be powered solely by Solar Energy, Musk’s field.  The distribution of goods & services produced would be the Bezos expertise.  Solar powered American Continents would reverse climate change (with the aid of solar desalinization watered forests).  Simple.

Cheers, Old Buz          03/21/2024

 

The Solutions:

“There are no perfect solutions to the problems of our imperfect world.”

(But, it is nice to keep searching.) – Old Buz