How do you consider the investment costs involved in developing a patent?
This is where things get challenging. The software industry could probably get along without patents altogether. The pharma industry, on the other hand, absolutely depends upon them. When a new drug is discovered and patented (which is part of the problem - drugs are discovered, not invented, which makes patenting seem a bit odd in the first place) the drug company has a 25-year window of time to develop it. This is actually a tight deadline as studies take a long time and often can face major back-to-square-one setbacks in the form of unexpected complications. All of this costs millions upon millions of dollars.
Now obviously drug companies would be willing to pay a handsome sum to keep ahold of their patents. But if you tax based on value, the value of a proven drug patent would be obscene, and that would cut deeply into the payoff for these pharma companies.
This is where things get challenging. The software industry could probably get along without patents altogether. The pharma industry, on the other hand, absolutely depends upon them. When a new drug is discovered and patented (which is part of the problem - drugs are discovered, not invented, which makes patenting seem a bit odd in the first place) the drug company has a 25-year window of time to develop it. This is actually a tight deadline as studies take a long time and often can face major back-to-square-one setbacks in the form of unexpected complications. All of this costs millions upon millions of dollars.
Now obviously drug companies would be willing to pay a handsome sum to keep ahold of their patents. But if you tax based on value, the value of a proven drug patent would be obscene, and that would cut deeply into the payoff for these pharma companies.