Free Markets Mean Zero Economic Profit – or a 99% Profit Markup

Bill Black explains economic rent, rent-seeking behavior, and rent extraction, which neoclassical economics assumes away.


New Economic Perspectives
Free Markets Mean Zero Economic Profit – or a 99% Profit Markup
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

Dean Baker — The Patent Theory of Knowledge

I would call the patent theory of knowledge part of the rent theory of "free market" economics along with other types of enclosure of the commons since privatization and monetization are needed to avoid "the tragedy of the commons," since the commons would either go to waste or else be misused. Neoliberalism is not actually liberalism, since it is not about free markets and perfect competition but economic power and the development and extension of asymmetries of power, information, and access that disadvantage "commoners."

Beat the Press
The Patent Theory of Knowledge
Dean Baker | CEPR

China and India break the legal lock on intellectual property

Chinese intellectual property laws have been overhauled to allow the nation's drug makers to make less expensive copies of medicines still under patent protection.

The move by China, considered a vital growth market for foreign pharmaceutical companies, comes within months of a similar action by India.

The amended patent law allows Beijing to issue compulsory licenses to eligible companies to produce generic versions of patented drugs during state emergencies, unusual circumstances, or in the interests of the public.

For "reasons of public health", eligible drug makers can also ask to export these medicines to other countries, including members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

"The revised version of Measures for the Compulsory Licensing for Patent Implementation came into effect from May 1, 2012," China's State Intellectual Property Office said in a faxed statement to the Reuters news agency.

China is known to be looking at Gilead Sciences Inc's Tenofovir, which is recommended by the World Health Organisation as part of a first-line cocktail treatment for AIDS patients, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

In March India granted a compulsory license to local generic drugs firm Natco Pharma to manufacture Bayer's cancer drug Nexavar, used for treating kidney and liver cancer.

Read the rest at Al Jazeera
China to license copies of patented medicines