patents

AARP is supporting a bill that would help federal regulators share information as they review patents for certain medicines and medical technologies.

If it weren't for Douglas Engelbart, the computer on your desk might still be little more than a glorified typewriter, and you might still be struggling to remember arcane DOS commands so you could type them into a luminous green C:\ prompt on a black screen. And the multimedia marvels of the Web…

 

If there's a medical test that could save your life, should one company have the power to set its cost so high that few people could afford it? And what if the thing that makes the company's test exclusive is a government-issued patent on a part of the human body?