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>What is so bad about trade secrets? Nothing in particular, but there are lots of times when it's useful to a society for people not to keep them. Patents gen

>What is so bad about trade secrets? Nothing in particular, but there are lots of times when it's useful to a society for people not to keep them. Patents generally last a little over a decade, after which competitors are free to use them. If you keep your developments secret, they could stay secret for decades, which means decades in which competitors couldn't study, improve upon, fix your ideas. It slows the pace of progress, or so the argument goes. You can agree or disagree with the sentiment, but I don't think it can be dismissed out of hand. >you have to go a step further and find out how to monetize it I think this comes back to society's interest, as all discussions of patents must. It's not necessarily in society's interest for you to withhold developments until you find a way to protect them. What if drug manufacturers refused to sell drugs, only dispensing them on location, for fear of others stealing their secrets? What if someone came up with an idea like Velcro, to hark back, and never developed it, seeing the cost and realising that the IP could never be protected. Would we be better off?

a_imho 11y ago
I would like to believe the answer is yes, but to be honest I'm not so sure. I don't think patents are the main driving force of innovation and research, and we would come to a halt without them. But even if they are, when you are the first to come up with an idea you are still in the best position to turn a profit off it without patents. Sure, your margins might be smaller, but society as a whole should benefit from a more competitive environment, compared to squeezing every drop of money to a single company. From previous discussions I took away big pharma R&D and PR cost breakdown is usually very sad. You can defend a case like Solvadi, that Gilead is entitled to maximize their profits, but it is not in society's best interest after all, as I think it is not directly looped back into innovation.

a_imho 11y ago

I would like to believe the answer is yes, but to be honest I'm not so sure. I don't think patents are the main driving force of innovation and research, and we would come to a halt without them. But even if they are, when you are the first to come up with an idea you are still in the best position to turn a profit off it without patents. Sure, your margins might be smaller, but society as a whole should benefit from a more competitive environment, compared to squeezing every drop of money to a single company. From previous discussions I took away big pharma R&D and PR cost breakdown is usually very sad. You can defend a case like Solvadi, that Gilead is entitled to maximize their profits, but it is not in society's best interest after all, as I think it is not directly looped back into innovation.