15-Year-Old Improves Pancreatic Cancer Test
Make: -- "Maryland teenager Jack Andraka (featured in the video above) isn’t old enough to drive yet, but he’s just pioneered a new, improved test for diagnosing pancreatic cancer that is 90% more accurate, 400 times more sensitive, and 26,000 times less expensive than existing methods.
When Andraka had solidified ideas for his novel paper sensor, he wrote out his procedure, timeline, and budget, and emailed 200 professors at research institutes. He got 199 rejections and one acceptance from Johns Hopkins: “If you send out enough emails, someone’s going to say yes.” Andraka was recently awarded the grand prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his groundbreaking discoveries."
HT: Gale Pooley
56 Comments:
Geez, good for that kid!
He did not build that.
Why the fuss? He was just using databases and equipment that other people built for him. He couldn't have done it without his teachers or his parents or the roads that got him to school. But we're definitely entitled to the cost savings he developed.
Achieve, baby, achieve.
Amazing, I always thought these science fairs were a waste of time, but I guess you never know what some bright kid is going to come up with. There's a better video on the Fast Company post about him, if you follow the link from Mark's link, which shows him going nuts when he wins the prize, funny stuff. :)
I hope he builds a billion-dollar business. Of course, the credit will go to Google, which was only possible through the internet, built by the government.
The young man, Jack Andraka, has achieved even more with his three cent dipstick sensor test:
"Jack said that his method also can be used to detect ovarian and lung cancer. He added, "It can also look at drug resistance for cancer therapeutic drugs and it can look at how effective a chemotherapeutic drug is."
I hope he doesn't forget to 1099 that cash prize.
Congrats on the project, brilliant.
" Andraka is in the process of patenting his invention ...."
would that by any chance be the U.S. patent office?
so the govt is going to protect his intellectual property?
how much do they charge for that?
Larry,
so the govt is going to protect his intellectual property?
Not surprisingly the patent system is basically a patronage system that is completely screwed up. Not surprising due to it being "run" by government.
But keep on egging on the government and cheering for it. I guess your thinking is that they don't screw enough things up.
Not surprisingly the patent system is basically a patronage system that is completely screwed up. Not surprising due to it being "run" by government.
is there a non-govt way to protect intellectual property?
larry-
1. intellectual property is still property. the purpose of government is to protect your rights, including property rights. what's so difficult to grasp there?
2. it costs much more than i suspect you think.
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee092611.htm
the fees can easily run into the 10's of thousands and that's not including the lawyer you use to draft the patent so that it would stand up well in court if challenged.
this is hardly a free utility.
you'll drop 3 grand alone on just search and examination and maybe another 2k on the basic filing.
you'll pay another 10k over the next 10 years to maintain it.
the patent office is a real racket, especially as all they do is issue a piece of paper that may or may not be worth anyhting.
you don't know what it really means until get a markman hearing (in patent court) to determine what the claims actually mean and then have a trial to determine validity etc.
they are not guaranteeing you anyhting, just stipulating that you said what you said and when.
lots of patents get invalidated when they go to court.
@morg
is there another way to enforce/protect intellectual property than with govt?
larry-
"
is there a non-govt way to protect intellectual property?"
you are confusing two ideas.
the patent office does not protect intellectual property.
they simply register your claim to a set of intellectual property (and charge outlandishly to do so).
they do a terrible job, which is why our patent system is such a mess.
they are simply not qualified to judge prior art etc. they get paid per filing, not based on doing a good job. so they run slapdash evaluations and figure they let the courts sort it out.
so, instead of getting good property claims, you get dunked into litigation.
this function could be outsourced and handled by actual experts. there is no reason that a private firm could not handle patents both better and faster. it takes years and years to get a patent granted as it is.
it's a terrible system.
good, fast, cheap, pick 2 goes the mantra for private business.
this government agency is getting you none.
it's a terrible system.
especially for technology apparently given the mucho lawsuits between Apple, GOogle, Oracle, etc...
but did you answer the question about a better, non-govt way of protecting intellectual property?
if you did not have a govt patent what would be your standing in court?
"1. intellectual property is still property."
No, it's not. Intellectual property is a monopoly privilege. That's considerably different than property.
larry-
that's the wrong question to ask.
right now, the case law demands that you have a government patent if you seek to deter emulators.
thus, asking "where would you be without it" is the wrong question because you need it based on law.
the better question is how could we change the law to better establish what intellectual property belongs to whom.
the answer to that is to privatize the patent system. turn the patent office into just a notary.
give them a "claim filed" stamp with a date and leave the actual heavy lifting of setting out, researching, and validating a claim to the private sector who will get paid and get business based on doing a good job, not based on being a monopoly.
no system will eliminate future disputes, but we could have far fewer if a bit more attention was paid up front.
no system will eliminate future disputes, but we could have far fewer if a bit more attention was paid up front.
you could do that with a private system but how would you ENFORCE it without govt?
are you expecting the govt to enforce, protect intellectual property or some other entity?
ondra-
that's ridiculous.
it's also totally destructive.
so, i pend a billion dollars developing a new version of windows, but then you are allowed to copy, use, and sell it for free?
how is that not a taking from me?
if i write a novel, why do you get to copy and sell it?
somehting need not be physical to be property.
consider what happens when intellectual property si not protected.
you get the music industry in africa. you get the software industry in china.
be denying people their intellectual property, you get no property produced at all.
why cut a CD when it will just get bootlegged?
these notions that all inforamtion wants to be free and is somehow communal property is just nonsense. not only does it alienate people from the fruits of their labor, but it destroys whole industries and the prosperity they create entirely.
larry-
i have said repeatedly that i think that adjudicating contract and property disputes in a court system is a legitimate role for government.
there are some others here that seem to believe in pure anarcho capitalism, but i am not one of them.
the legitimate roles of government are to protect the borders, protect the rights of citizens, and resolve disputes about property and contract.
all good law is based on one of 2 precepts:
do as you have promised.
do not harm others or their property.
do me a favor and print that out so you remember. you seem to ask me this same question in slightly different forms over and over.
that's my answer and will continue to be.
the legitimate roles of government are to protect the borders, protect the rights of citizens, and resolve disputes about property and contract.
so this kid did not do it all by himself and he has "help" from the govt?
lord. lord.
Obama was right?
:-)
Larry, there's no reason for patents whatsoever, they probably hurt innovation more than they help. There's also no need for copyright. In fact, both govt agencies and their "IP" are being increasingly ignored as the internet era takes off, so there goes your govt need argument.
morganovich, you need to read up on this: there are private systems that can do much better than patents and copyright. I suggest you check out Boldrin's book Against Intellectual Monopoly, available for free online (he also came on Econtalk, if you prefer listening to him), where he points out how badly the old systems have done. It is particularly instructive that all the interesting innovations on the steam engine only happened after Watt's patents expired. As for copyright, I agree that the argument that "information wants to be free" is bullshit, but that doesn't mean that there aren't real problems with the copyright model in the internet age. I think those who used to rely on copyright will have to come up with new and innovative ways to continue selling their work and no, that won't require copyright or DRM.
you could do that with a private system but how would you ENFORCE it without govt?
are you expecting the govt to enforce, protect intellectual property or some other entity?
I would not expect government to do anything of the kind. If you think that someone is copying your idea you can sue them on your own in court for the damages that were incurred. Below is an argument against both copyright and patents. While I do not fully agree with it Kinsella is very persuasive.
Against Intellectual Property
I would not expect government to do anything of the kind. If you think that someone is copying your idea you can sue them on your own in court for the damages that were incurred. Below is an argument against both copyright and patents. While I do not fully agree with it Kinsella is very persuasive.
if the govt has no law against stealing intellectual property on what basis would you sue?
what courts would have jurisdiction?
if the govt has no law against stealing intellectual property on what basis would you sue?
what courts would have jurisdiction?
If you think that an idea is property and that someone stole it you can sue for theft.
If you think that an idea is property and that someone stole it you can sue for theft.
if you did this in a 3rd world country, what would happen?
why would you feel that a 3rd world type legal structure in this country would work any differently?
What court has jurisdiction?
If the guy that "stole" your idea lived in California and you lived in Florida what court would you sue in?
how would you force the guy to pay you a judgement?
You're in a swamp with this..you know.
there's a reason why this is a govt function.
IP is worthless if there is no govt rule of law.
I can help the kid genius find a good barber to cure his terminal haircut.
if you did this in a 3rd world country, what would happen?
The judges would laugh at you because they would argue that ideas are not scarce and should not be patented.
why would you feel that a 3rd world type legal structure in this country would work any differently?
Actually, customs law works better than our current system of arbitrary legislation written by industry and passed by Congress without having been written. Law should be discovered, not written.
Of course, if you had actually bothered to learn or just look at a few of the hundreds of citations that have been provided to you in the past you would already know this. Let me remind you that you live in a world where the laws stipulate how round a tomato has to be before it can be sold to consumers or how curved a cucumber can be even though the curvature has no effect on nutrition or taste. You live in a country where law tells you how much pressure is in your shower head, that forces you to use lightbulbs full of toxic materials instead of incandescents, and dictates how much water a toilet tank must have. A customs judge would tell any prosecutor that he has no right to dictate to you such terms and would pay you damages for being bothered by trivial charges.
What court has jurisdiction?
If the guy that "stole" your idea lived in California and you lived in Florida what court would you sue in?
how would you force the guy to pay you a judgement?
You're in a swamp with this..you know.
there's a reason why this is a govt function.
IP is worthless if there is no govt rule of law.
I suggest that you actually read much of the material that has been referenced when we had similar arguments before. Your ignorance requires some work before it can go away and you must do that work yourself by research and reading.
re: what courts?
I'm still not clear what courts would be used to sue for damages?
are these govt courts or private courts?
sprewell-
i have read it.
i was not as taken with it as you seem to have been.
it seemed naive and utopian.
this notion that we would all write the same software record the same music and develop the same drugs if others were allowed to immediately copy them is simply unrealistic.
in societies that do not protect such things, production stops.
why would a company spend a billion dollars creating a drug that would immediately be copied and sold by competitors who did not face such development costs and could under-price them?
property rights are an integral and necessary part of capitalism. if you take them away, there is no capital formation and no creation of property and value.
the system you seem to support is worse even than communism from this respect.
the thinking behind it is naive in the extreme and based on a total disregard for everyhting we have learned about property rights as a needed fundament to economic activity, creation, and innovation.
larry-
"
lord. lord.
Obama was right?
:-)"
um, no.
if you think the one conclusion follows form the other, then you have some severe flaws in your logic.
the government did not invent anything there. they did not build it or give him the idea.
but, with him having built somehting, they will help him keep it by protecting his property rights. such is their proper role.
by your logic, you did not build your house, the police who prevent it from being stolen did.
try not to be such a twerp larry.
you are just being inflammatory for the sake of being annoying.
vangel-
what was it you found persuasive in that piece?
i skimmed it and it comes off as the same naive utopianism you usually get from the "information wants to be free" crowd.
they seem to believe that IP would still be created if the rewards for doing so were largely eliminated.
why would a private company spend a billion dollars creating a drug to treat cancer if, the minute it launched, 15 companies who did not invest such funds would knock it off and sell it generic?
why would oracle bother creating a new database if it would be immediately copied and taken for free by everyone?
if you eliminate property rights, no one will build anyhting.
it's a cute parlor game to say "how can you own an idea", but the real question is how can a technology driven economy be expected to innovate if ideas are NOT considered property?
"
The judges would laugh at you because they would argue that ideas are not scarce and should not be patented. "
good ideas are.
ideas on how to improve a turbocharger are.
ideas on how to develop more effective chemotherapy are.
the text of the next great american novel is.
they are far scarcer than most physical commodities.
you are mistaking ease of replication with scarcity.
the idea itself is quite scarce and often very expensive (in cash or time) to bring to fruition. the fact that is can be spread around easily once seen does not make this less so.
very few people could develop a new cancer drug. just because the drug is easy to copy once made is no reason to alienate the producer from his labor and break the incentives to have ever produced the idea at all.
if you want to really make ideas scarce, stop treating them as property.
morganovich, not sure what you find "naive and utopian" about solid historical evidence that patents have always slowed innovation, not furthered it. I don't think "we would all write the same software record the same music and develop the same drugs if others were allowed to immediately copy them." I do think the mix of goods and services will change, for example, the recorded music industry is going to die, it's already down to a third of what it was (second chart). That means musicians will have to go back to live touring to make money, just as they did for most of history, nothing wrong with that. As for software, it will have to become more of a service and less of a product to avoid piracy, for example, it's impossible to pirate Google's search. As for drugs, we haven't been protecting them under patent law for that long and the main reason they cost so much is because of the ridiculous demands of the FDA. Get rid of those demands and I suspect we could come up with a much better private system, that renumerated those creating and testing the drugs while allowing for a lot more innovation.
"in societies that do not protect such things, production stops."
Not necessarily and granting govt monopoly over copyright/patent isn't the only way to protect innovation. I'd argue that the current system has on net been a negative, not a positive. You and I can argue all we want about whether property rights are best applied to ideas, but that argument is meaningless given the current environment. I am making a very pragmatic argument that it is impossible to "protect" most content using copyright in the internet age. Not to mention that there are vast populations, in China, India, and Russia, that do not subscribe to your property rights vision of copyright/patent, so your laws don't hold for them anyway. I will agree with you that those who call for the price of all ideas to be zero, the "information wants to be free" crowd, are basically making a dumb communist argument, but that's not the argument I'm making.
I'm making a very pragmatic argument that the old system has always been broken and now it's practically terminal. Time to come up with new market-oriented solutions to replace it, along the lines of the solutions I've suggested above. I'd argue that you are being simplistic "in the extreme" and blindly applying what you think works for physical goods, property rights, to areas where it doesn't apply, certainly not anymore.
I had not realized that there are such strongly divergent views on intellectual property...
wow!
re: what courts?
I'm still not clear what courts would be used to sue for damages?
are these govt courts or private courts?
Private courts. Like I said, you need to read. You have been given many examples but have yet to pay any attention.
Private courts. Like I said, you need to read. You have been given many examples but have yet to pay any attention
so what power does a private court have to force someone to show up to defend against others claims of theft?
why couldn't people just blow off their "jurisdiction"
why would a company spend a billion dollars creating a drug that would immediately be copied and sold by competitors who did not face such development costs and could under-price them?
It wouldn't if there was an FDA that required billions in spending. But in a free market there would be neither patent protection nor an FDA. The developers would be able to make their money before the other competitors could make copies of the drug.
And have you looked at what is going on today? You have companies spend money to make minor changes to a drug that loses patent protection even though those changes are not material. They also spend massive amounts to market those new drugs to doctors who prescribe them because the insurance companies cover the bills. Instead of doing the rational thing, as would be done if patients paid with their own money what you have is a massive increase in health care costs without the benefits.
if you eliminate property rights, no one will build anyhting.
I do not believe that this is true. Look at the way that patent law is used in the tech sector and you find that patents can stifle competition and development of new products for consumers. The idiots in the patent office have issued patents for gestures, how screens look, processes, etc., that never should have been allowed. As Dave Graeber writes:
"...Most people who work in corporations or academia have witnessed something like the following: A number of engineers are sitting together in a room, bouncing ideas off each other. Out of the discussion emerges a new concept that seems promising. Then some laptop-wielding person in the corner, having performed a quick Google search, announces that this “new” idea is, in fact, an old one; it—or at least something vaguely similar—has already been tried. Either it failed, or it succeeded. If it failed, then no manager who wants to keep his or her job will approve spending money trying to revive it. If it succeeded, then it’s patented and entry to the market is presumed to be unattainable, since the first people who thought of it will have “first-mover advantage” and will have created “barriers to entry.” The number of seemingly promising ideas that have been crushed in this way must number in the millions.
And so a timid, bureaucratic spirit suffuses every aspect of cultural life. It comes festooned in a language of creativity, initiative, and entrepreneurialism. But the language is meaningless. Those thinkers most likely to make a conceptual breakthrough are the least likely to receive funding, and, if breakthroughs occur, they are not likely to find anyone willing to follow up on their most daring implications..."
Not very long ago I held the views that you do now. But as time has passed and I have done some research I have changed my position. While I am not quite as far as Kinsella I am closer to his position than yours.
it's a cute parlor game to say "how can you own an idea", but the real question is how can a technology driven economy be expected to innovate if ideas are NOT considered property?
But why should an independent idea not be permitted because someone filed a paper at an office that may have been similar?
so what power does a private court have to force someone to show up to defend against others claims of theft?
why couldn't people just blow off their "jurisdiction"
Read. We have had the discussion before and you have been given the references. It is easy to shed your ignorance if you want to.
why couldn't people just blow off their "jurisdiction"
Read. We have had the discussion before and you have been given the references. It is easy to shed your ignorance if you want to.
yes we did and it made no sense what-so-ever. It was a cockamamie theory of which there are no examples in the modern world.
If order for ANY court to have jurisdiction there has to be a government and it has to apply to both parties in a dispute.
Otherwise, it does not work.
you cannot force parties to agree to jurisdiction of a court - only govt can accomplish that.
someone who steals from you is not going to voluntarily agree to a court to decide his guilt and punishment.
it's a bizarre concept.
you're living in LA LA LAND.
telling me to "read" is evading and avoiding answering the questions.
yes we did and it made no sense what-so-ever. It was a cockamamie theory of which there are no examples in the modern world.
Hong Kong. The US West. Why aren't those examples sufficient?
Hong Kong. The US West. Why aren't those examples sufficient?
because they do not exist.
you cannot exert jurisdiction over someone who will not acknowledge it.
Only the force of govt can force people to submit to jurisdiction.
because they do not exist.
you cannot exert jurisdiction over someone who will not acknowledge it.
Only the force of govt can force people to submit to jurisdiction.
Sure you can. You don't need government to defend yourself against theft. Like I said, you need to read the links on customs and common law again.
Sure you can. You don't need government to defend yourself against theft. Like I said, you need to read the links on customs and common law again
it's the other guy you have to coral.
How do you do that if he does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court?
remember, we're talking about the United States and how you'd deal with people who steal from others.
who enforces the rulings of the court?
how do you take another persons assets based on what some non-govt court ruled on?
none of this makes one whit of sense guy. It's totally bizarre and cannot function in a world where countries already have governments.
you're essentially advocating a government within a government with it's own rules and laws separate and independent from the other govt.
no where on earth does that happen.
"The developers would be able to make their money before the other competitors could make copies of the drug."
that's pure fantasy. the numbers there simply do not work.
leave the fda aside. you still need to do discovery, trials, testing etc. you can't just whip a drug out. the cost is still going to be a billion dollars for a big drug once you risk adjust it.
so, you then get what, 3-6 months to sell it before someone proves bio-equivalence an starts selling at at cost to manufacture + 10%?
you will never recoup what you spent.
software would be even worse. the first copy ow windows 7 or a new oracle database costs billions. it's free to rip them off and sell them.
i really think you are ignoring just how disastrous this would be to innovation.
trademarks are arguably even more important. they exist for consumer protection. when you buy a can of coca cola, you know who made it. if i could put some other beverage in a can that looks identical and call it coca cola, then what?
i still do not understand the basis of your opinion.
it seems rooted in the notion that we will innovate just as much if the rewards to innovation are cut by 99%. this flies in the face basic economics.
why build what you will not own? why spend your time and money innovating when someone else will just take what you built and give it away?
you seem to be assuming an awful lot of altruism.
sure, patent law causes issues. it may make us wait to further benefit from future innovation. but that is a far lesser price than not getting the innovation at all.
"But why should an independent idea not be permitted because someone filed a paper at an office that may have been similar"
for the same reason you do not get to own a parcel of land if i have bought it first.
if we do not protect ideas as property, then people will not spend the time developing new ideas and intellectual property.
as a said above, sure, having IP as property carries costs, but they are far less than the costs of not protecting such property.
having private tools has costs too. if i could walk into your garage and borrow your belt sander any time i wanted to, that might lead to certain efficiencies, but it would also make you less likely to bother owning one as it would never be around when you needed it and you would get sick of spending money for the benefit of freeloaders.
actually FDA approval mitigates risk.
right?
who enforces the rulings of the court?
The sureties that guarantee the individual. You do not read very well. This was covered before a number of times yet you are still confusing the different systems with each other.
who enforces the rulings of the court?
The sureties that guarantee the individual. You do not read very well. This was covered before a number of times yet you are still confusing the different systems with each other.
and I asked you before what happens if the guy charged with stealing refuses to recognize the sureties as a legitimate authority and you slid sideways talking about sending people to hurt him.
sounded like the Mafia...
you're advocating this in a place like the US ...INSTEAD of the current laws for theft of property.
don't you see just how bizarre this is?
you insist it "could" work...but no existing country does it this way and you're talking about one kind of crime when there are dozens/hundreds including assault, murder, etc and you're selecting out one kind of crime to be dealt with - with "sureties"who have no authority to do anything in the US much less charge people with a crime or send people to get the guy if he rejected the jurisdiction.
you don't seem to understand what "sovereign" means when applied to a nation. It means there is ONE govt.
that's pure fantasy. the numbers there simply do not work.
leave the fda aside. you still need to do discovery, trials, testing etc. you can't just whip a drug out. the cost is still going to be a billion dollars for a big drug once you risk adjust it.
so, you then get what, 3-6 months to sell it before someone proves bio-equivalence an starts selling at at cost to manufacture + 10%?
That is not the way things work. First of all, you do not need the type of testing system as you do now or FDA approval. And most discoveries are made by accident when someone is looking for one affects but notes another. People will still try to make money and some clinic or another will figure out that some compound allows its patients to get a good result. When others copy the discovery more people will have access to cheap help than do today. The discoverer will still benefit greatly because success will mean more money, more prestige, and better clients who can afford to pay higher prices.
As I pointed out above, if you look at the pharma industry you see that most of the costs are due to government regulations and most of the new 'discoveries' do not lead to materially different results. The industry is all about money, not about healing the sick or innovating.
"But why should an independent idea not be permitted because someone filed a paper at an office that may have been similar"
for the same reason you do not get to own a parcel of land if i have bought it first.
This is a very weak argument. Two people can have the same idea. They cannot have the same car, house, or tangible good.
if we do not protect ideas as property, then people will not spend the time developing new ideas and intellectual property.
That is not true. Musicians wrote music and authors wrote books before copyright protection. And as was pointed out, most of the advancements with some technology or another usually came after the patent protection ran out.
as a said above, sure, having IP as property carries costs, but they are far less than the costs of not protecting such property.
I don't think this is true. There is a huge cost to granting a monopoly to some people while denying others that had a similar or the same idea the right to use that idea.
having private tools has costs too. if i could walk into your garage and borrow your belt sander any time i wanted to, that might lead to certain efficiencies, but it would also make you less likely to bother owning one as it would never be around when you needed it and you would get sick of spending money for the benefit of freeloaders.
You are mudding the waters here. Tools are scarce and cannot be owned by more than one person at a time. Ideas can be held simultaneously by many people. Giving one of them control has nothing to do with free markets or liberty.
and I asked you before what happens if the guy charged with stealing refuses to recognize the sureties as a legitimate authority and you slid sideways talking about sending people to hurt him.
This was answered several times on other posts. The fact that you can't read, refuse to read, or are too stupid to understand is your problem.
This was answered several times on other posts. The fact that you can't read, refuse to read, or are too stupid to understand is your problem.
nope. you have no answer because you know it's pure fantasy .... it's one thing to propose something that has some chance of actually working, it's quite another to advocate really bizarre stuff that has no chance of every being implemented and continuing to claim that it will work because "reading" will show how.
morgan, bravo on your rock solid logic in defending intellectual property rights -- and of course your gentelmenly patience, as usual.
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