There's no such thing as a one-off exemption

In this argument we will explain why it is damaging for the government to undermine its patent credibility. Patents are property rights that ensure companies with a monopoly of the product for a period of time and they act as an incentive to research. But they work only when people and companies trust the government to ensure those property rights. Making a one-off exemption would undermine the government patent credibility. Making a one-off exemption would be detrimental, because companies would not necessarily perceive it as a one-off exemption. They would no longer be sure of government's legal protection of the capital that they invest into research and invention. This would be harmful to all patent industries, because people would then be afraid of investing their money into these industries. Even if that doesn't happen and people perceive abolishing patents only in extreme cases, it's still bad to do this. This would set a precedent for abolishing pharmaceutical patents for diseases that meet certain conditions like AIDS. These would be diseases that are life-threatening, impact a large number of people and require long-term medication. In these cases the people would expect the government to drop patent protection. Even if this motion solves the problem of AIDS, then what happens when new diseases emerge? Companies would then be unlikely to spend money on developing drugs for these dire conditions. Private companies, however, are the fastest, most efficient way of developing drugs. To explain this we have to look at alternative institutions that might develop drugs. These are government institutions and universities. If pharmaceutical research is constrained to these areas then there are three big issues that arise: 1. Fewer types of drugs will be created. 2. Drugs are created more slowly. 3. There will be less upgrading for existing treatment. These problems all arise, because for these institutions there is no comparable incentive to private businesses. For pharmaceutical companies it is profitable to develop many different kinds of drugs and upgrade existing treatment, whereas the government will invest only enough to produce a sufficient cure, even if it isn't the best cure. This is especially problematic in the case of anti-retroviral drugs since retroviruses (like HIV) have a high rate of mutation, developing resistance to drugs very quickly, stressing the need for constant development. [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12456349]] Also there is no race to drive these institutions, where as pharmaceutical companies because of the competition that exists between them have the incentive to put maximum effort into coming out with a new drug, to be the first to dominate the market. So disincentivizing companies to work on new life-threatening diseases, takes away our most efficient and fastest way for developing drugs. This impedes our ability to deal with health problems that arise in the future and that is harm to everybody in the world and to future generations, since everybody has the risk of contracting these diseases. But even if people and companies would perceive this as a one-off exemption for AIDS then it's still harmful. People would then think (and it would probably be the case) that there's little investment in the private sector for AIDS drugs. That hurts everyone who has AIDS, because it damages their future prospects and feeling of security.