Re: Ethics of patenting O&P ideas
Anderson Harold R.
Description
Collection
Title:
Re: Ethics of patenting O&P ideas
Creator:
Anderson Harold R.
Date:
8/18/2000
Text:
David, you get no argument from me regarding the reasons for patenting
products and systems. I've worked in industry and been involved with much
of the industrial espionage that goes on when one company develops a great
new product or system. But that doesn't negate the effect that patenting
trimlines and keeping ideas secret from the rest of the profession (unless
they pay for it) has on the ultimate patient/client.
Our profession is a profession of innovators. Except for components that we
use within our systems, most of what we do is custom. That's one of the
things that drew me into this profession. Rather than designing an item for
mass production, I can design a device for one individual to fit his or her
needs. If the PLS AFO design were patented, I would have a significant wall
put up in my ability to help a patient who could benefit from that
particular design. Yet the person who patented the design would be well
within their rights to have done so in order to recoup the research costs of
developing the design and hoping to make an extra million or so for the
effort.
Keeping techniques secret in our profession also creates a quandary in that
those techniques cannot be evaluated by peer review.
So it's a problem that we have that doesn't have an easy solution. I'm
suggesting that our profession acknowledge the problem and look for ways to
come up with a solution.
Why are some of the great ideas in our field public domain? Look back at
some of the great innovators in our profession who have and are continuing
to explore new ideas and ways of doing things and sharing them with their
peers. Then why are some ideas and processes patented or kept secret? How
can we encourage increased sharing of research? Perhaps grants are an
answer. Perhaps recognition is an answer. I don't know but I think it's
something we should be talking about...IMHO:-). We should also be asking
those who are doing the patenting and keeping research secrets what it would
take for them to be more forthcoming.
Harold Anderson, CO
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Hendricks, CPO, FAAOP [SMTP: <Email Address Redacted> ]
> Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 7:46 AM
> To: <Email Address Redacted>
> Subject: Re: Ethics of patenting O&P ideas
>
> This is a public reply to Harold Anderson's posting about the practice of
> keeping secrets in O&P by patenting ideas and processes in order to
> personally benefit from them. I agree with most of what Harold said and I
> applaud the selflessness of his motives, but I disagree on one point.
>
> Harold wrote: By patenting an idea or making it secret, we are throwing
> walls up in our profession.
>
> My answer is that the whole idea of patent law is to get new ideas into
> free
> circulation. It's part of our free market system and it works like this:
> By
> granting a researcher a monopoly for a limited time, our government
> encourages the researcher to spend the time, energy and money involved to
> develop a new process. It is the profit motive the provides the impetus
> for
> the innovation. But after that limited time of monopoly, which is designed
> to
> repay someone who has undertaken the expense of developing a new idea or
> process, the idea or process becomes in the public domain and no one can
> either keep it secret or personally profit from it.
>
> So actually the patenting process is a force designed to get new and
> useful
> ideas into the public domain. Without it, many innovative people simply
> would
> not to through the expensive and time-consuming process of inventing only
> to
> have someone copy it as soon as they had perfected it.
>
> For example, suppose a prosthetic researcher works for six years testing
> chemical after chemical until he develops an AK prosthetic skin that
> flexes
> just like human skin around the knee without the AP squashing and the
> peripheral wrinkling which accompany all continuous AK skins today. He
> comes out with it in a sprayable resin which costs him $30 a gallon to
> manufacture, but which he must sell for $150 a gallon to repay himself for
> his six years of research. And even at that, it will take him three years
> of
> sales to do so. Remember, he could have been earning $90,000 a year as a
> clinical prosthetist during those six years of research. But a month after
> his new product is out, another prosthetist sends a sample of his new
> resin
> to a chemical lab to have it reverse engineered. This new prosthetist pays
> $400 to determine exactly what is in the resin and within two more months
> he
> has a knockoff on the market which he is selling for $60 a gallon. Without
> patent protection in the form of government enforced monopoly, the first
> prosthetist will go bankrupt and will never be paid for the six years he
> spent, without remuneration, in the quest of something on one guaranteed
> him
> he would ever find. That's why we need patent law. That's how it
> encourages
> new ideas.
>
> This, of course, is IMHO.
>
> David Hendricks, CPO, FAAOP
>
>
products and systems. I've worked in industry and been involved with much
of the industrial espionage that goes on when one company develops a great
new product or system. But that doesn't negate the effect that patenting
trimlines and keeping ideas secret from the rest of the profession (unless
they pay for it) has on the ultimate patient/client.
Our profession is a profession of innovators. Except for components that we
use within our systems, most of what we do is custom. That's one of the
things that drew me into this profession. Rather than designing an item for
mass production, I can design a device for one individual to fit his or her
needs. If the PLS AFO design were patented, I would have a significant wall
put up in my ability to help a patient who could benefit from that
particular design. Yet the person who patented the design would be well
within their rights to have done so in order to recoup the research costs of
developing the design and hoping to make an extra million or so for the
effort.
Keeping techniques secret in our profession also creates a quandary in that
those techniques cannot be evaluated by peer review.
So it's a problem that we have that doesn't have an easy solution. I'm
suggesting that our profession acknowledge the problem and look for ways to
come up with a solution.
Why are some of the great ideas in our field public domain? Look back at
some of the great innovators in our profession who have and are continuing
to explore new ideas and ways of doing things and sharing them with their
peers. Then why are some ideas and processes patented or kept secret? How
can we encourage increased sharing of research? Perhaps grants are an
answer. Perhaps recognition is an answer. I don't know but I think it's
something we should be talking about...IMHO:-). We should also be asking
those who are doing the patenting and keeping research secrets what it would
take for them to be more forthcoming.
Harold Anderson, CO
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Hendricks, CPO, FAAOP [SMTP: <Email Address Redacted> ]
> Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 7:46 AM
> To: <Email Address Redacted>
> Subject: Re: Ethics of patenting O&P ideas
>
> This is a public reply to Harold Anderson's posting about the practice of
> keeping secrets in O&P by patenting ideas and processes in order to
> personally benefit from them. I agree with most of what Harold said and I
> applaud the selflessness of his motives, but I disagree on one point.
>
> Harold wrote: By patenting an idea or making it secret, we are throwing
> walls up in our profession.
>
> My answer is that the whole idea of patent law is to get new ideas into
> free
> circulation. It's part of our free market system and it works like this:
> By
> granting a researcher a monopoly for a limited time, our government
> encourages the researcher to spend the time, energy and money involved to
> develop a new process. It is the profit motive the provides the impetus
> for
> the innovation. But after that limited time of monopoly, which is designed
> to
> repay someone who has undertaken the expense of developing a new idea or
> process, the idea or process becomes in the public domain and no one can
> either keep it secret or personally profit from it.
>
> So actually the patenting process is a force designed to get new and
> useful
> ideas into the public domain. Without it, many innovative people simply
> would
> not to through the expensive and time-consuming process of inventing only
> to
> have someone copy it as soon as they had perfected it.
>
> For example, suppose a prosthetic researcher works for six years testing
> chemical after chemical until he develops an AK prosthetic skin that
> flexes
> just like human skin around the knee without the AP squashing and the
> peripheral wrinkling which accompany all continuous AK skins today. He
> comes out with it in a sprayable resin which costs him $30 a gallon to
> manufacture, but which he must sell for $150 a gallon to repay himself for
> his six years of research. And even at that, it will take him three years
> of
> sales to do so. Remember, he could have been earning $90,000 a year as a
> clinical prosthetist during those six years of research. But a month after
> his new product is out, another prosthetist sends a sample of his new
> resin
> to a chemical lab to have it reverse engineered. This new prosthetist pays
> $400 to determine exactly what is in the resin and within two more months
> he
> has a knockoff on the market which he is selling for $60 a gallon. Without
> patent protection in the form of government enforced monopoly, the first
> prosthetist will go bankrupt and will never be paid for the six years he
> spent, without remuneration, in the quest of something on one guaranteed
> him
> he would ever find. That's why we need patent law. That's how it
> encourages
> new ideas.
>
> This, of course, is IMHO.
>
> David Hendricks, CPO, FAAOP
>
>
Citation
Anderson Harold R., “Re: Ethics of patenting O&P ideas,” Digital Resource Foundation for Orthotics and Prosthetics, accessed November 6, 2024, https://library.drfop.org/items/show/214357.
