3 ms·

Your main problem seems to be with the use of patents to protect market dominance. I agree with you that this is a problem, but disagree on the cause. The pat

by nickff 11y ago

Your main problem seems to be with the use of patents to protect market dominance. I agree with you that this is a problem, but disagree on the cause. The patent system has been causing this kind of issue ever since its creation; look at when the Wright brothers patented aircraft roll control, and a lawyer patented cars.[1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_B._Selden#The_Selden_patent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_B._Selden#The_Selden_pa...

anigbrowl 11y ago
That is not the case, and I apologize for the lack of clarity. I am not totally opposed to patents, and I think your examples undermine your argument since they describe innovations that are clearly patentable (whereas my mention of Uber applying for a patent on surge pricing is highly questionable under the Prior Art standard). My main problem is the use of capital to establish market dominance by indirectly buying out the public commons. Taxpayers arguably subsidized the development of Cornell's robotics department, with the benefits of their research being available across the whole economy (possibly through patent licensing), but by hiring away all the staff at once Uber has indirectly appropriated a chunk of that public subsidy. Now all the individual scientists who worked there are independent agents who presumably liked the terms of the offers they received and also wanted to continue working with each other. One could say that the human capital in the lab was undervalued by the public funding option, but one could equally argue that Uber has helped itself to a large consumer surplus (qua hoarding the supply of available robotics scientists) with the joint effect of denying their availability to competitors, and increasing the price the public will have to pay to re-establish a comepetitive department, if it can do so at all. There is no guarantee that this will result in an increase in robotics innovation from the private sector. It might suit Uber equally well to pay the robotics scientists to sit around and do nothing or otherwise fritter away the investment, as long as the scientists' absence from the marketplace of ideas disadvantages Uber's competitors. In other words, you don't need your own robot car, you just need to make it harder for anyone else to build robot cars that could compete with you. I do not want to suggest that Uber has evil motives here, by the way - I have no idea what the firm's plans or goals are. I'm just pointing out that acquisition of a resource does not automatically lead to greater economic efficiency. We've all seen examples of ;arge firms buying up potentially disruptive competitors in order to bury them.

by nickff 11y ago

anigbrowl 11y ago

That is not the case, and I apologize for the lack of clarity. I am not totally opposed to patents, and I think your examples undermine your argument since they describe innovations that are clearly patentable (whereas my mention of Uber applying for a patent on surge pricing is highly questionable under the Prior Art standard). My main problem is the use of capital to establish market dominance by indirectly buying out the public commons. Taxpayers arguably subsidized the development of Cornell's robotics department, with the benefits of their research being available across the whole economy (possibly through patent licensing), but by hiring away all the staff at once Uber has indirectly appropriated a chunk of that public subsidy. Now all the individual scientists who worked there are independent agents who presumably liked the terms of the offers they received and also wanted to continue working with each other. One could say that the human capital in the lab was undervalued by the public funding option, but one could equally argue that Uber has helped itself to a large consumer surplus (qua hoarding the supply of available robotics scientists) with the joint effect of denying their availability to competitors, and increasing the price the public will have to pay to re-establish a comepetitive department, if it can do so at all. There is no guarantee that this will result in an increase in robotics innovation from the private sector. It might suit Uber equally well to pay the robotics scientists to sit around and do nothing or otherwise fritter away the investment, as long as the scientists' absence from the marketplace of ideas disadvantages Uber's competitors. In other words, you don't need your own robot car, you just need to make it harder for anyone else to build robot cars that could compete with you. I do not want to suggest that Uber has evil motives here, by the way - I have no idea what the firm's plans or goals are. I'm just pointing out that acquisition of a resource does not automatically lead to greater economic efficiency. We've all seen examples of ;arge firms buying up potentially disruptive competitors in order to bury them.