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The usual result is that no creative applications of the new technology are legal until both patents run out in 20 years. Or that a foreign nation that didn't
by WildUtah 10y ago
The usual result is that no creative applications of the new technology are legal until both patents run out in 20 years.
Or that a foreign nation that didn't accept the patents becomes the only center of innovation and the nation that paid for it becomes a backwater.
One or both of those happened with steam engines, sewing machines, and aeroplanes. Humanity was not better off.
It was narrowly averted in photography, automobiles, and computer software by governments invalidating the pioneer patents in the field for the benefit of mankind.
- spangry 10y agoI hear ya, especially on aeroplanes (it turns out the Wright brothers were kinda jerks). It's such a shame that, due to the current nature of political discourse, it seems that the only two plausible options are (a) artificial and stifling patent monopolies or (b) expropriation by the state. There seems to be a very sensible, but verboten, middle ground here: government funding of socially beneficial research and, if a significant public benefit can be demonstrated, compulsory state acquisition under the condition that just compensation is given.