Upholding the first sale doctrine

Posted Mar 21, 2013 21:58 UTC (Thu) by wahern (subscriber, #37304)
In reply to: Upholding the first sale doctrine by lacos
Parent article: Upholding the first sale doctrine

Market segmentation isn't charity, it's just maximizing profits. Every company attempts to segment their market six ways from Sunday, because it usually allows you generate more profits by arbitraging differences in price elasticity. Another term for market segmentation is price discrimination.

All these concepts are fundamentally neutral in terms of being harmful or beneficial. So don't pull on my heart strings in an attempt to feel bad when trade barriers are taken down.

If poor countries need help acquiring pharmaceuticals, they can come ask me or my political representatives directly. If somebody is on the cusp of curing cancer, but can't afford the trials because their Viagra slush fund was raided by stock holders, they can come ask me or my political representatives.

If you try to address these issues with round-about trade machinations, in all likelihood you'll dramatically reduce overall social wealth.

Upholding the first sale doctrine

Posted Mar 21, 2013 22:15 UTC (Thu) by lacos (guest, #70616) [Link] (3 responses)

If poor countries need help acquiring pharmaceuticals, they can come ask me or my political representatives directly

Assuming (from your comment) that free trade has been established and the producer has been forced to set a common (high) price overall, how would the above work in practice? Thanks.

Upholding the first sale doctrine

Posted Mar 21, 2013 22:29 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

you (or your political representatives) help the poor country pay the costs.

Upholding the first sale doctrine

Posted Mar 22, 2013 8:48 UTC (Fri) by lacos (guest, #70616) [Link]

It wouldn't prevent them (or a 3rd party merchant) from reimporting and reselling more cheaply. Perhaps the subsidized pharmaceuticals should only be sold to patients ("end users") in the target country, but that's again a trade barrier, only not between countries.

Upholding the first sale doctrine

Posted Mar 22, 2013 18:55 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

... or you decide to eat the loss because the alternative is the poor country compulsorily licensing your patent and farming it out to a much cheaper generic manufacturer. Of course, a lot of patent treaty sorts *hate* this, but it's still there, and India and others have used it. It's amazing how fast the licensing fees demanded dropped when they did so.