Comment on Doctors Remove Woman’s Brain Implant Against Her Will
pingveno@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoAs part of unwinding a company that is going out of business, they usually do sell off their IP. That doesn’t mean that anyone will continue this particular experiment.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
The same rule applies to whenever they sell the IP to. Whoever buys the IP should be legally obligated to continue the experiment as a condition of buying it. The alternative—putting the IP in the public domain—doesn’t do a lot for people who need active, ongoing support for a medical device, implanted in their body. I’d make a separate, stricter rule for that case. I don’t have a clear idea what that rule should be, though, because we can’t require a medical experiment to continue indefinitely if we want anyone to develop new medical devices.
pingveno@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If you start adding on mandates to the IP like that, that severely narrows the list of companies that are even capable of buying it. They have to have employees with knowledge of the specific device, which only a small number of people may be using.