3 ms·

Can you expand on how a patent system benefits society? I'm not sure I buy the argument that it encourages innovation or even that innovation would be somehow s

• whack 10y ago
  The reasoning is that in a world without patents, companies wouldn't invest heavily in R&D. They would just wait for someone else to come up with a good idea, and then copy it. In a world where everyone does this, aggregate R&D investments would be much smaller than what they are now. Which would in turn reduce the rate of innovation and technological progress. Or at least that's the argument as framed by defenders of the patent system, which generally includes most mainstream economists and policy-makers. However, there certainly are numerous groups, such as libertarians and socialists, who would dispute many parts of the argument above.
  • nthcolumn 10y ago
    Yeah call me 'Ron Swanson'. I understand the 'R&D is expensive and people wouldn't bother' argument but I'm not sure I buy it? Won't people always create and invent? They can't help themselves. The actual people who have the ideas rarely benefit from them nowadays anyway. It can also have perverse consequences such as pharmaceuticals only investing in stuff that eases symptoms and not cures? (I have no actual data on that). Thanks.