A woman whose epilepsy was greatly improved by an experimental brain implant was devastated when, just two years after getting it, she was forced to have it removed due to the company that made it going bankrupt.
As the MIT Technology Review reports, an Australian woman named Rita Leggett who received an experimental seizure-tracking brain-computer interface (BCI) implant from the now-defunct company Neuravista in 2010 has become a stark example not only of the ways neurotech can help people, but also of the trauma of losing access to them when experiments end or companies go under.
Companies that aren’t actively using their IP should be forced to license it to someone who will, or put it in the public domain.
All of their code and specs should be required to be put into escrow in case they go out of business.
That doesn’t seem like the best idea with expiramental implants. I doubt anyone would want to take on the liability for some defunct company’s implant because there’s no upside for them to do so and a lot of downsides.
Doing stuff that makes peoples lives better with no short-term financial incentive? Sounds like a mission for public-funded institutions :)
There’s no real guarantee it’ll make her life better especially if it’s a 1 of 1 implant. They could just as easily try to control it and give her debilitating seizures because they have nothing to test on. I get the sentiment but I don’t think anybody would be willing to take on that risk.
As 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.
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.
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.