Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1994

Publication Title

Scrip Magazine

Keywords

patents, healthcare, patent piracy, GATT

Abstract

In theory, a patent provides a monopoly over a product or a process in return for the disclosure of an inventive discovery. In practice, however, it is an indirect form of government intervention in healthcare which carries enormous calculable costs but whose benefits are entirely a matter of faith. It is ironic that in healthcare of all areas, where the guiding principle is the application of the scientific method, extraordinary investments are made in a system which so far has not been subjected to any scientific test.

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