Preliminary Annotated Citations

Intellectual Property and Pharmaceutical Industry

Stiglitz, Joseph. “Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society.” The New Humanities Reader. 5th ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage, 2015. 394-417. Print.

Stiglitz references Intellectual Property laws as not incentives to create but monopolies of use. His central claim is that they are designed not to maximize “the pace of innovation by rather to maximize rents”(Stiglitz 404) and current IP law has many loopholes. He indirectly suggests that behavior like this contribute to the wealth gap because companies abuse these rights, and are not truly innovative; they are only truly smart in bending the law to benefit themselves at the expense of the public.

Lethem, Jonathon. “The Ecstasy of Plagiarism: A Plagiarism.” The New Humanities

Reader. 5th ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage, 2015. 210-234. Print.

Lethem states that Intellectual property law is harmful for the economy because it oftentimes limits the potential of the idea. The public domain is most effected because artists cannot use or improve on that copyrighted/patented idea and thus the public suffers the most. He also relates it to usemonopoly, the company has a monopoly on use of that idea and uses it for self profit as opposed to helping the community.

Watters,Ethan. “The Mega Marketing of Depression in Japan.” The New Humanities

Reader. 5th ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage, 2015. 512-529. Print.

Watters explains natural phenomena on cultural psychiatry and how depression in US is viewed differently than depression in Japan. The main argument in this essay is that our interpretation and presentation of ideas is heavily influenced by our environment, specifically the culture. By manipulating this perception, drug companies were able to offer depression medication to those who needed it without referencing the terrible stigma” being depressed carries in other cultures.

Smith, Adam, and D. D. Raphael. The Wealth of Nations. New York: Knopf, 1991. Print. In his book Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith introduces the concept of the "invisible hand", and advocates against government intervention and regulation of the economy. According to the principle of the invisible hand, resources will naturally be allocated optimally based solely off market forces and demands (the hand guides resource allocation). This indirectly contradicts with IP law because IP essentially gives a company a monopoly over that idea/invention, thus not encouraging perfectly competitive markets.

Stiglitz, Joseph E. Making Globalization Work. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print. In this book, Stiglitz discusses how "our current intellectual property framework may actually inhibit innovation". That is his central idea, but he also notes that innovative firms in Silicon Valley are opposing strengthening IP for drug and entertainment industries. I think drug companies differ in IP in that they claim sole right to sell a drug whereas entertainment IP forbids replication/alteration of artistic productions. He also argues that there are "strong distributive consequences of any legal framework" to support his argument that IP inhibits innovation rather than protecting it.