WEBVTT

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For my husband,
it was love at first sight.

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(Laughter)

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Here's what happened.

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Years ago, Rudy,

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who I had strictly put
in the friend zone at the time,

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came over to my house and met my dad,

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a pharmaceutical scientist
who had just retired

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after bringing a drug to market.

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My dad said,

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"Ah, you probably
wouldn't have heard of it.

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It's for IPF,

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idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis."

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Rudy paused for a long time,
and then he said,

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"That's the disease that took
my father's life 15 years ago."

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Rudy says that this
is the moment he fell in love.

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(Laughter)

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With my father.

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(Laughter)

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Even though it was too late
for my dad to save his,

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he felt that destiny had delivered us
this full-circle moment.

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In my family, we have a special love
for my father's inventions.

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And in particular, we have
a reverence for his patents.

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We have framed patents
on the wall in our house.

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And there's a recognition in our family
that everything I've been able to do --

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college, law school,
health justice work --

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all of it is because America
enabled my father

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to fulfill his potential as an inventor.

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(Applause)

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Last year, I met the director
of the US Patent Office

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for the first time,

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and I sent my family a selfie
from that office in Virginia.

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(Laughter)

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I got so many emojis back,

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you would have thought I had met Beyoncé.

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(Laughter)

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But truth be told,

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I was actually there
to talk about a problem --

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how our outdated patent system
is fueling the high cost of medicines

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and costing lives.

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Today, over two billion people
live without access to medicines.

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And against this global crisis,

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drug prices are skyrocketing,

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including in wealthier countries.

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Thirty-four million Americans
have lost a family member or a friend

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in the last five years,

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not because the treatment didn't exist,

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but because they couldn't afford it.

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Rising drug costs are pushing
families into homelessness,

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seniors into bankruptcy

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and parents to crowdfunding treatment
for their critically ill children.

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There are many reasons for this crisis,

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but one is the outdated patent system

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that America tries to export
to the rest of the world.

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The original intention
behind the patent system

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was to motivate people to invent

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by rewarding them
with a time-limited monopoly.

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But today, that intention
has been distorted beyond recognition.

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Corporations have teams
of lawyers and lobbyists

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whose sole job is to extend
patent protection as long as possible.

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And they've kept the patent office busy.

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It took 155 years for the US Patent Office

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to issue its first five million patents.

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It took just 27 years
for it to issue the next five million.

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We haven't gotten
drastically more inventive.

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Corporations have gotten
drastically better at gaming the system.

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Drug patents have exploded --

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between 2006 and 2016, they doubled.

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But consider this:

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The vast majority of medicines
associated with new drug patents

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are not new.

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Nearly eight out of 10
are for existing ones,

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like insulin or aspirin.

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My organization,
a team of lawyers and scientists,

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recently conducted an investigation
into the 12 best-selling drugs in America.

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We found that on average,

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there are 125 patents
filed on each medicine.

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Often for things we've known
how to do for decades,

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like putting two pills into one.

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The higher a patent wall a company builds,

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the longer they hold on to their monopoly.

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And with no one to compete with,

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they can set prices at whim.

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And because these are medicines,

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and not designer watches,

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we have no choice but to pay.

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The patent wall is a strategy
to block competition.

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Not for the 14 years maximum

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that America's founders
originally envisioned,

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or the 20 years allowed by law today,

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but for 40 years or more.

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Meanwhile, prices on these drugs
have continued to increase --

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68 percent since 2012.

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That's seven times the rate of inflation.

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And people are struggling or even dying

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because they can't afford the meds.

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Now I want to be really clear
about something.

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This isn't about making
the pharmaceutical industry the bad guy.

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What I'm talking about today

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is whether the system we created
to promote progress

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is actually working as intended.

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Sure, the pharmaceutical companies
are gaming the system,

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but they're gaming it because they can.

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Because we have failed
to adapt this system

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to meet today's realities.

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The government is handing out

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one of the most prized
rewards in business --

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the opportunity to create a product
that is protected from competition --

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and asking for less and less
in return on our behalf.

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Imagine awarding 100 Pulitzer Prizes
to one author for the same book.

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(Laughter)

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It doesn't have to be this way.

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We can create a modern patent system

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to meet the needs
of a 21st-century society.

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And to do that,

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we need to reimagine the patent system
to serve the public,

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not just corporations.

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So how do we do it?

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Five reforms.

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First, we need to stop
handing out so many patents.

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Back under the Kennedy administration,

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in an effort to curb rising drug costs,

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a congressman from Tennessee
proposed an idea.

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He said,

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"If you want to tweak a drug,

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and you want to get another patent on it,

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the modified version has to be
significantly better, therapeutically,

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for patients."

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Because of intense lobbying,

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this idea never saw the light of day.

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But a reimagined patent system

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would resurrect and evolve
this simple, yet elegant proposition.

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That to get a patent,

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you have to invent something
substantially better

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than what's already out there.

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This shouldn't be controversial.

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As a society,

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we reserve the big rewards
for the big ideas.

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We don't give Michelin stars
to chefs who just tweak a recipe --

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we give them to chefs who change
how we think about food.

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And yet, we hand out patents
worth billions of dollars

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for minor changes.

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It's time to raise the bar.

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Second,

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we need to change the financial incentives
of the Patent Office.

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Right now, the revenue
of the Patent Office

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is directly linked to the number
of patents that it grants.

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That's like private prisons
getting paid more to hold more people --

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It naturally leads to more incarceration,

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not less.

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The same is true for patents.

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Third, we need more public participation.

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Right now, the patent system
is like a black box.

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It's a two-way conversation
between the patent office and industry.

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You and I aren't invited to that party.

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But imagine if instead,

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the Patent Office became a dynamic center
for citizen learning and ingenuity,

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staffed not just by technical
experts and bureaucrats,

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but also by great
public-health storytellers

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with a passion for science.

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Regular citizens could get
accessible information

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about complex technologies

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like artificial intelligence
or gene editing,

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enabling us to participate
in the policy conversations

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that directly impact our health and lives.

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Fourth,

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we need to get the right to go to court.

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Right now in America,
after a patent is granted,

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the public has no legal standing.

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Only those with a commercial interest,
usually other drug companies,

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have that right.

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But I've witnessed firsthand
how lives can be saved

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when everyday citizens
have the right to go to court.

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Back in 2006 in India,

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my organization worked
with patient advocates

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to challenge, legally,
unjust HIV drug patents,

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at a time when so many people were dying

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because medicines
were priced out of reach.

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We were able to bring down
the prices of medicines

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by up to 87 percent.

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(Applause)

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On just three drugs,

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we were able to save health systems
half a billion dollars.

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Now, cases like these
can save millions of lives

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and billions of dollars.

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Imagine if Americans
had the right to go to court, too.

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And lastly, we need stronger oversight.

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We need an independent unit
that can serve as a public advocate,

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regularly monitoring the activities
of the Patent Office,

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and reporting to Congress.

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If a unit like this had existed,

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it would have caught, for example,
the Silicon Valley company Theranos,

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before it got so many patents
for blood testing

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and landed evaluation
of nine billion dollars,

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when in reality,

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there was no invention there at all.

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This kind of accountability
is going to become increasingly urgent.

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In the age of 23andMe,

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important questions are being asked

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about whether companies
can patent and sell

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our genetic information
and our patient data.

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We need to be part of those conversations

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before it's too late.

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Our information is being used
to create the new therapies.

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And when that moment of diagnosis
comes for me and my family,

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or for you and yours,

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are we going to have to crowdfund
to save the lives of those we love?

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That's not the world I want to live in.

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It's not the world I want
for my two-year-old son.

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My dad is growing older now,

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and he is still as quietly brilliant
and morally directed as ever.

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Sometimes people ask us
whether things get heated between us:

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the patent-holding scientist

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and his patent-reforming lawyer daughter.

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It's such a profound misunderstanding
of what's at stake,

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because this is not
about scientists versus activists

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or invention versus protection.

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This is about people,

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our quest to invent and our right to live.

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My dad and I understand
that our ingenuity and our dignity

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go hand in hand.

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We are on the same side.

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It is time to reimagine a patent system

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that reflects that knowing.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)