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In software, by doing nothing. Merely not punishing for innovation (via submarine patents) is enough. Other incentives and protections seem to be enough for the

by pornel 9y ago

In software, by doing nothing. Merely not punishing for innovation (via submarine patents) is enough. Other incentives and protections seem to be enough for the vast majority of software, which is not patented. To give a specific example, we'd be 20 years ahead in video codecs if they weren't a research minefield and innovations of open-source community weren't tainted by patents (in this area there are lots of people keen to innovate, but they have to bend backwards to make something good strictly out of 20+-year-old algorithms, because anything not obviously outdated is undeployable due to litigation risk). For other areas, like drug research, I think publicly-funded research is a great solution. When new drugs are invented, they should be produced as cheaply as possible, repaying investment by saving as many people as possible.

johncolanduoni 9y ago
> For other areas, like drug research, I think publicly-funded research is a great solution. Tallying up most of the federal funding in the U.S. for R&D of any kind gives you a number ~ $130 billion per year for the last few years[1]. The top fifteen pharma companies have R&D budgets that look to add up to around $80 billion per year[2]. What countries do you expect to be willing to match that spend? [1]: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2016/nsf16311/ https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2016/nsf16311/ [2]: https://endpts.com/top-pharma-biotech-research-development-budgets/ https://endpts.com/top-pharma-biotech-research-development-b...
- tedsanders 9y ago
  And note a huge chunk of government R&D is defense. HHS/NIH is like $30B a year, which makes the $80B comparison even more compelling.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    The weird thing being that some of the biggest leaps of technological development have been during wartime, because then budget is no issue. The early cultivation of penicillin involved walls of cotton balls acting as growth environment. Laborious, ineffective and expensive, but maintained so that the army hospitals were provided a reliable supply.

by pornel 9y ago

johncolanduoni 9y ago

> For other areas, like drug research, I think publicly-funded research is a great solution. Tallying up most of the federal funding in the U.S. for R&D of any kind gives you a number ~ $130 billion per year for the last few years[1]. The top fifteen pharma companies have R&D budgets that look to add up to around $80 billion per year[2]. What countries do you expect to be willing to match that spend? [1]: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2016/nsf16311/ https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2016/nsf16311/ [2]: https://endpts.com/top-pharma-biotech-research-development-budgets/ https://endpts.com/top-pharma-biotech-research-development-b...

tedsanders 9y ago
And note a huge chunk of government R&D is defense. HHS/NIH is like $30B a year, which makes the $80B comparison even more compelling.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  The weird thing being that some of the biggest leaps of technological development have been during wartime, because then budget is no issue. The early cultivation of penicillin involved walls of cotton balls acting as growth environment. Laborious, ineffective and expensive, but maintained so that the army hospitals were provided a reliable supply.