Friday, January 31, 2020
Patents and Intellectual Property Essay Example for Free
Patents and Intellectual Property Essay Patents and Intellectual Property Introduction            A patent is a set of rights given exclusively to an individual or firm by an independent nation to the inventor or discoverer for a given duration in exchange for detailed information on the details of the inventions or discovery (Foray 28). Inventions that can be patented are new products, processes of manufacturing, improvements to an existing product or process, new chemical compounds or compositions, or processes relating of an existing manufacturing process (Perelman n.p.). This form of intellectual property encourages the economic and technological development by rewarding intellectual creativity. Patents are a crucial part for advancements in science based professions such as medicine, biotechnology, computers and even drug chemistry. These advancements have born great fruits which have all been aimed at improving the life of mankind. In this paper, the strengths and weaknesses of patent laws and foreign investment, trade, innovation, public health, generic resources and traditional knowledge will be discussed. Patent laws have improved the life of investors greatly, this has led to greater determinations in patenting other products, and in the process, greater, and discoveries that are more useful have been made.            Patents laws are set up to ensure that the owner of intellectual property benefits from his or her invention. The law gives the owner freedom of choice to do what they require with the invention as long as it does not conflict with other existing laws. The inventor can sell the patent at any market price they believe is commensurable, they can license the patent to others for use and in the process collect royalties from the users which increases their financial stability (Gold 135). Patent laws also offers a sense of protection to the inventors for the stipulated time (usually twenty years), and this approach usually is a disadvantage to the competitors in the same line of work. These laws also prohibit dealing with patented goods without permission from the patent holder and this ensures that pirating of patented goods or services is a prosecutable case whereby one can be sentenced to jail or heavily fined (Perelman n.p.).            Strong patent laws are a major attraction to foreign investors who are assured of the protection of their goods or services. They are thus confident about imitations of their product, which has lead to an increased net demand of their products leading to higher marginal profits.            The intellectual laws act as an attraction and assurance to foreign investors as their business is enabled a fair play ground to compete with existing indigenous firms (Smarzynska 41). Strong patent laws also offer a location attraction to foreign investors opting for areas with enhanced patent laws. This has lead to further development and improvement of economies of such areas as compared to areas whose laws are not well established. Stronger intellectual property rights can be a deterrent to new foreign investors since existing firms may have already established large market bases which may not be easy to break through. With this kind of market, monopolistic ventures may mushroom to the disadvantage of consumers since they may overprice their commodities due to lack of competitors.            Patent laws create ownership advantages conferring to firms serving the foreign markets (Cooter, Ulen 124). Through the provision of legal redress against any violations, markets are expanded and increase in both multilateral and bilateral trades. Patent laws increase bilateral exchange to foreign markets by reducing the costs associated with preventing loss of knowledge assets. Such costs consist of foregone revenues resulting from reduced bilateral exchange and or expenses incurred to make knowledge assets difficult to imitate especially when the destination country has strong imitative abilities.            Strong intellectual property laws can increase market power and even though strong laws enhance ownership advantage, this enhanced ownership can increase or decrease bilateral exchange. The market power concept holds that strong rights reduce bilateral exchange by ensuring a temporary monopoly over the protected knowledge. This market power is attributed to the patent holder, whether domestic or foreign. Firms that secure strong patent protection in foreign markets can exercise their market power by restricting quantity and increasing the unit price of bilateral exchange to that market (Fink and Primo 26).            According to Forays (13), strong patent laws provide incentives for people and firms to invest in research. Where there exists strong patent laws, inventors and innovators are energized since any benefits are accrued to them. With weak patent laws a free market economy fails to induce an optimal investment in research, development and innovation, since investors would not be able to recoup the full benefit from their investment. Patent laws also give strong ownership advantages to firms in developed countries, which encourage them to transfer their technology to developing countries through market channels at a cost. Strong patent laws may also be a disadvantage since they may lead to increased market power which results in high cost of technology transfer. In cases where there exist weak patent laws, this provides a loophole for technology transfer in non-market channels which would greatly disadvantage the innovators.            Patents are important to pharmaceutical firms as they help in appropriating the benefits to the innovators. Moreover, products and the development process are protected from imitators in order to avoid replication of same drug. The process of drug development is quite costly averaging at about 1billion US dollars for the actual discovery, development and regulation approval (Shimasaki, 123). However, patenting novel drugs is essential and only beneficial in developed countries where many firms may want to set up drug manufacturing firms. According to Vernon (14), the expensive process of research and development is usually compensated by profits, which arise from patent protection. Patent laws in drug development are quite complicated since while patenting new drug protects the producers from unscrupulous firms may also increase the cost of the drugs thus making them unaffordable to needy people.            The process of patenting innovations in public health may be long and tiresome which may discourage innovations. However due to emergence of tropical diseases in the developing world patenting may act as an incentive for continued research in both drug development and innovations of new procedures for their early diagnosis and treatment. All this will lead to improved health care for patients especially in developing countries where cost of drugs is beyond the reach of the majority who are struggling. Patent laws encourage the development of medicinal compounds or products. These conditions being rare are not economically viable for the pharmaceutical firms since the profits margins are so minimal thus little research is channeled towards them. However, through patenting, firms that delve into this kind of research because they are protected exclusively thus giving them the sole ownership rights to manufacture and distribute them at a give n cost (Gold 131-132). This enables them to make profits.            Weak patent laws in the health sector have been associated by rise of firms, which exploit the whole process of drug development. Drug imitators can benefit from innovators’ free approval and produce duplicate drugs at a much lower cost relative to the real cost of discovering and developing the new product. Patenting the genetic resources and traditional knowledge ensures that people who participated in the development of the new information are acknowledged for the work they have done. To scholars being acknowledged builds confidence in them and is a motivator for them to work even harder. By them being acknowledged, it shows that they become authorities in their specific fields, which further leads to production of more accurate and high quality new knowledge. Patent laws regarding information are in conflict with human rights since patent information should be made public for the benefit of all. It is not easy to relate patent l aws and human rights since it exist in different perspectives on the same depending on the contributors (Gold 186). As such, information should be easily accessible at minimal cost affordable to all.            In production of pharmaceuticals, patents laws restricted patent term to 20 years, this was disadvantageous to people who developed drugs for infrequent illness because sales of the drugs could not give adequate returns within the period. It was until 1984 that the congress amended the drug act by coming up with orphan drugs act that extended the period of patents to 25 years in order to allow developers to pay-back the cost of development and get profits (Gold 132). In addition, patent restricted use of available drugs for research of new drugs development. This presented a challenge to development of new and generic drugs until when the congress amended the patent laws to allow use of drugs for research purposes. Conclusion            Patent laws have more strength compared to weaknesses but it depends on the patent issue. Through patenting, the innovators and inventors are not only recognized as the owner of the emerging products but they also have various benefits such as financial gains to payback on the capital invested. The patent are only limited to 20 years, which in some cases is disadvantageous to products with weak marketing such as orphan drugs. The government intervention has resulted in developers reaping high profits for their ideas, and products over a given period. The weakness of patent is limitation on research where they restrict third party from using the original product or idea to develop new product thus slowing research and improvements of the existing ones. Hence, caution is necessary to ensure that patenting does not give rise to monopolies, which would discourage competition at the expense of the consumers. References Cooter, Robert and Ulen, Thomas. Intellectual Property in Law and Economics 5th ed. Toronto: Pearson, 2008. Fink, Carsten. and C.A. Primo Braga. ‘How Stronger Protection of Intellectual Property Rights Affects International Trade Flows’. In C. Fink and E. Mansfield (eds) Intellectual Property and Development: Lessons from Recent Economic Research. New York: World Bank/Oxford University Press. (2004). Print. Foray, Dominique. Technology Transfer in the TRIPS Age: The Need for New Types of Partnerships between the Least Developed and Most Advanced Economies. Geneva international Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (2009). Gold, Richard E. Patents and Human Rights: A Heterodox Analysis. Journal of Law,Medicines and Ethics, 41(1) (2013):185-198. Perelman, Michael. â€Å"In Patents We Trust: How the U.S. Government Learned to Stop Worrying about Monopoly and Love Intellectual Property.†MR Zine (2005). Shimasaki, Craig D. The Business of Bioscience: What Goes into Making a Biotechnology Product. Dordrecht: Springer, 2009. Print. Smarzynska Javorcik, B. ‘The Composition of Foreign Direct Investment and Protection of Intellectual Property Rights: Evidence from Transition Economies’. Journal of European Economic Review 48(1) (2004): 39–62. Vernon, J.A. ‘Examining the Link between Price Regulation and PharmaceuticalResearch and Development Investment’. Journal of Health Economics 14(1) (2005): 1–16. 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Thursday, January 23, 2020
White-Only Scholarship Controversy :: Diversity Equality Racism Essays
Diversity, a word often heard growing up. In high school diversity was an issue that was pushed repeatedly. I attended a school that had a student body of over 2000 students, in which diversity was not really an issue. As time passed I found that diversity affected my life more and more. As college neared filling out applications became more of a ritual, and I found that by being born into a white middle class family would hinder my financial status rather than help it. Recently an article appeared in the Iowa State Daily, which addressed the issue of a white-only scholarship. In addition to the scholarships offered to members of the minority races, a scholarship should be offered to the members of the decreasing majority. Whites or Caucasians make up a group just as Native Americans, blacks, and Hispanics do. The one thing that separates whites from these other groups besides skin color is the fact that for each minority group, there are several scholarships that pertain to each. As a nation we have placed a great deal of emphasis on making sure the minorities are getting equal opportunities, but we forget that there are members of the Caucasian decent that need assistance as well. Most times minorities are the ones that need financial assistance in a college situation, but we have forgotten that there are white families that have grown up in the same neighborhood as these individuals, who also need financial assistance. This is why the idea of a white-only scholarship is not so unrealistic. A group of students attending Roger Williams University have created a Whites-only scholarship to initially protest affirmative action. This protest however has snowballed into the real thing. This protest has now become a $250 scholarship available to only white students. This award shows America that whites are becoming the minority, and no matter how much we fight it, it is going to become a reality sooner or later. This then opens America’s eyes and shows them that by being a minority there are more opportunities for financial aid based on skin color than there are for whites. This said, there should be at least one scholarship for just whites to counteract the many minority scholarships available to other races. â€Å"Many people think that coming from a white background you’re automatically privileged, you’re automatically rich, and your parents pay your full tuition.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Can We Hide from Failure
Can We Really Hide From Failure? Does success and failure go hand in hand? Success gives people satisfaction and delight, where failure can discourage and exhaust them. But what people can tend to forget is that in life, everyone comes across failure every once in a while. What everyone should remember is that no one is perfect and they should not lose hope and give up. Winston Churchill once said â€Å"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts†(Winston Churchill) Humans have always been imperfect, so we often tend to stumble every now and then.Life tests everyone. Failures are more memorable, but they can be helpful in many different ways. They are our best teachers and give us the most growth. Every time one fails they can learn some type of lesson. When people learn to investigate the reason behind their failures, they can attempt to change the outcome the next time to protect themselves against making the same mistake. Success c an mislead many into negative paths. It can make them become less enthusiastic, uncreative, make them conceited and sometimes arrogant. It can even make people forget who they are.If they become too proud of their accomplishment, it can allow for some to forget their selves. On the other side many can learn from ones success. If people learned to study the success of others, they could learn a lot about themselves. Present day society learns a lot from other people’s failures, and society needs to consider more that failure can be the best lesson. No one should be fearful of failure. People are able to learn the most about themselves when they have failed, so in turn, people should never be afraid to fail. Failure is a large part of becoming successful.Many people are so afraid to fail that they fail to even try. The experiences that man receives through failure each time makes their future success lasting and enjoyable. If everyone gave up on trying as soon as they came acro ss failure, they would feel defeated all through life, even when they possess the courage to reach the goal. In each failure on can discover hidden intelligence. Each failure gives more experience and knowledge than the last. People need to learn how to avoid giving failure attention to be careless or disorganized of the person’s responsibility.If people learn to be equipped with the experience of failure and use courage to continue on, success will be theirs. â€Å"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently†(Henry Ford). Man should not need to feel flustered if failed. People are beginning to hear and read about adults wanting to protect children/students from the trauma and the experience of failure. Things they hear are about removing exams in the school system, or if exams are being presented; for them to not be marked as zero’s or even with â€Å"fail†. Of course they have also heard about the sporting events.Tryi ng to avoid the winning and losing aspects, and instead favoring the enjoyment of just playing the game. This is occurring because people are worried for the fragile nature of their self-worth, and being protected against the early bumps in the road. This fails to represent the reality of their lives, the reality that children/students will be involved in as adults and the reality that they will be expected to function within. What good is this movement doing to this generation? By doing engaging the removal of failure we will not be prepared to deal with the reality that we see out in the world every day.Failure allows man to take in the positive learning experience. Failure teaches people many character building life lessons. Only those that try and fail can physically and mentally understand the difficulties and disappointment of others who have misfortune and lack of success. Without empathy and compassion this world would be a lot more miserable. Man’s ability as an indi vidual expresses compassion for others will have increased by experiencing failure themselves. As man grows they learn to be patient when their plans go astray and are forced to gather themselves up and start over.These challenges are difficult to overcome in one easy try. When plans don’t go as accordingly, they should patiently try again and again until they achieve success. If man were experiencing nothing but success, might they potentially walk around all high and mighty? Failure also allows them to be humble, to take nothing for granted. When man witness another experiencing failure, they are more than able to help and support the individual while in the rut of failure. There is no one more exquisite then a humble successful person. One of the more positive side effects of failure is acquiring the virtue of perseverance.Every accomplishment man achieves in life is by trying and failing and then trying again to accomplish success. Determination leads to perseverance whic h culminates all man’s efforts into achievement. If we give up early, we may never experience success. The only way to overcome failure is to never give up. Many people have probably experienced failure at one time or another. They all have their own definitions of failure, simply because they have different standards, values, and beliefs. A failure for one person can simply be a learning experience for someone else. The fear of failing can be damaging.Many people are afraid of failing, most of the time. It can cause them to do nothing, and therefore resist moving forward. But when they allow fear to stop their forward progress in life, they are likely to miss some great opportunities, and achievements along the way. Man can choose to see failure as the end of the world, or look at failure as the incredible learning experience that it often is. Every time man fails at something, they can choose to acknowledge the lesson they are meant to learn. These lessons are how man grows as a person, and how they keep from making the same mistake again. Failure will only stop man if they let it.
Monday, January 6, 2020
Degrees of Freedom for Independence in Two-Way Table
The number of degrees of freedom for independence of two categorical variables is given by a simple formula: (r - 1)(c - 1). Here r is the number of rows and c is the number of columns in the two way table of the values of the categorical variable. Read on to learn more about this topic and to understand why this formula gives the correct number. Background One step in the process of many hypothesis tests is the determination of the number degrees of freedom. This number is important because for probability distributions that involve a family of distributions, such as the chi-square distribution, the number of degrees of freedom pinpoints the exact distribution from the family that we should be using in our hypothesis test. Degrees of freedom represent the number of free choices that we can make in a given situation. One of the hypothesis tests that requires us to determine the degrees of freedom is the chi-square test for independence for two categorical variables. Tests for Independence and Two-Way Tables The chi-square test for independence calls for us to construct a two-way table, also known as a contingency table. This type of table has r rows and c columns, representing the r levels of one categorical variable and the c levels of the other categorical variable. Thus, if we do not count the row and column in which we record totals, there are a total of rc cells in the two-way table. The chi-square test for independence allows us to test the hypothesis that the categorical variables are independent of one another. As we mentioned above, the r rows and c columns in the table give us (r - 1)(c - 1) degrees of freedom. But it may not be immediately clear why this is the correct number of degrees of freedom. The Number of Degrees of Freedom To see why (r - 1)(c - 1) is the correct number, we will examine this situation in more detail. Suppose that we know the marginal totals for each of the levels of our categorical variables. In other words, we know the total for each row and the total for each column. For the first row, there are c columns in our table, so there are c cells. Once we know the values of all but one of these cells, then because we know the total of all of the cells it is a simple algebra problem to determine the value of the remaining cell. If we were filling in these cells of our table, we could enter c - 1 of them freely, but then the remaining cell is determined by the total of the row. Thus there are c - 1 degrees of freedom for the first row. We continue in this manner for the next row, and there are again c - 1 degrees of freedom. This process continues until we get to the penultimate row. Each of the rows except for the last one contributes c - 1 degrees of freedom to the total. By the time that we have all but the last row, then because we know the column sum we can determine all of the entries of the final row. This gives us r - 1 rows with c - 1 degrees of freedom in each of these, for a total of (r - 1)(c - 1) degrees of freedom. Example We see this with the following example. Suppose that we have a two way table with two categorical variables. One variable has three levels and the other has two. Furthermore, suppose that we know the row and column totals for this table: Level A Level B Total Level 1 100 Level 2 200 Level 3 300 Total 200 400 600 The formula predicts that there are (3-1)(2-1) 2 degrees of freedom. We see this as follows. Suppose that we fill in the upper left cell with the number 80. This will automatically determine the entire first row of entries: Level A Level B Total Level 1 80 20 100 Level 2 200 Level 3 300 Total 200 400 600 Now if we know that the first entry in the second row is 50, then the rest of the table is filled in, because we know the total of each row and column: Level A Level B Total Level 1 80 20 100 Level 2 50 150 200 Level 3 70 230 300 Total 200 400 600 The table is entirely filled in, but we only had two free choices. Once these values were known, the rest of the table was completely determined. Although we do not typically need to know why there are this many degrees of freedom, it is good to know that we are really just applying the concept of degrees of freedom to a new situation.
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