Liveblog: TACD IP: Innovation Inducement Prizes

The next panel is on innovation inducement prizes. [I'm posting this out of order because I couldn't get a connection during the session. I didn't format my notes then, and I'll post them in raw form here.] First is Steve Merrill of the National Academies of Science.

in most circumstances, prizes don’t replace patents
circumstances appropriate for prizes are limited
can be complex to administer with non-trivial administrative costs
as we consider & implement public prizes, we need to build in a system to evaluate effectiveness

prizes for achievements after the fact — don’t necessarily help

prizes ex ante — do induce effort/attention direction at specified goals

discrete prizes: designed for a particular objective; many of these, long history
series of prizes: Innocentive, X Prizes
program of prizes: Royal Society of Agriculture
system of prizes: 1 proposed

Royal Society of Agriculture: 100 years, awarded prizes & metals for innovative farm machinery
both monetary and honorific
each year, society targeted areas and announced in advanced

system: Medical Prize Innovation Act
awards based on improvements in public health
designed to produce open competition in production and distribution — patents unenforceable after award of prize

effectiveness of prizes:
purposes: achieve technical objective
encourage participation, e.g. of non-traditional participants [participatory science]
encourage unorthodox approaches (cf. limits of peer-review system)
often designed to encourage collaboration and team-building
often designed to educate & inspire non-participants [participatory science]

little scholarly evaluation of prizes
Lerner re: royal society: investments of winners 3x monetary prize; medals more attractive than monetary prizes

many rules to be decided
have to promote existence of prize to spur participation

what topics work?
ones where the market isn’t serving
but doesn’t work well for basic science

judging and establishing rules is tricky

there is a larger role for prizes than are currently used, but it’s not unlimited
don’t underestimate the complexity and cost of organizing prize contests

Next is Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International.

recommendations:
de-link R&D incentives from prizes
create sustainable institutions to increase the supply of global public goods

deficits in current funding system
only 10% of new drug approvals in 2007 were priority drugs

Next is Michelle Childs of Médecins Sans Frontières:

there is an absence of needs-driven research
lack of drugs, diagnostics, vaccines
antiquated or ill-adapted tools

e.g. diagnostic technology for TB as used not changed since 1800s; 50% failure rate

WHO IP report: patents not relevant or effective for needs without a market

WHA 60.30: needs-driven R&D; address link b/w costs of R&D and price of medicines, etc.

[link b/w science-innovation-entrepreneurship -- attracting participation in general, but especially to needed areas]

recommendations:
need targeted funds
support WHO proposal by Bolivia and Barbados
need new models for i+a
de-link R&D costs from prizes