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Patents take money from the poor by denying them the prosperity at low-cost that would happen if there were no patents. Patents are government-enforced monopol

Patents take money from the poor by denying them the prosperity at low-cost that would happen if there were no patents. Patents are government-enforced monopolies. They enable all of what anyone would expect with monopolies, namely high prices for consumers.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Reasonably time limited patents are a necessary component of incentivizing innovation, without which consumers would not realize new goods and services based off of those innovations.
- dTal 8y ago
  There was plenty of innovation before patents. The purpose of patents was never to incentivize innovation. The purpose was to incentivize disclosure, to allow the progress of society by revealing trade secrets (in exchange for which they would be protected from competitors for a time). If you've ever tried to read a patent, you'll know this system has failed. In almost no cases can you meaningfully replicate an invention from a patent. Quite apart from which, a huge number of things under patent protection today are public knowledge anyway, or can be considered 'obvious'.
- setr 8y ago
  >Reasonably time limited patents are a necessary component of incentivizing innovation Ive never been satisfied with this necessity; its not like innovation would just seize without patents: innovation in processes is still incentivized, because falling behind would mean higher prices than competition, and lost market share, so you still need to r&d to at least match the competition, let alone best it. Innovation in consumer products is still incentivized, by first movers effect, though perhaps the easiest copied things are lost (ie plastic lids might be too easy to copy design updates). Innovation in software obviously wont stop, and shenzhen succeeds in electronics with lax (absent?) patent/copyright law. The primary innovation patents might be necessary for is a small company taking on a larger one, and needing to protect its design while it gets itself going.... but in practice, it proposed hinders innovation there more than it helps. Patents, I think, are about essentially open-sourcing the design of things, and the incentive to do so is a temporary, gov-enforced monopoly. If theres any idea about innovation, its in the long-term, as 5,10,20 years from now, we can read up on these ideas and build on top of them, instead of seeing them lost in time with the company's demise.
  - bad_user 8y ago
    One argument is that small companies can't out-compete big companies in efficiency due to lack of resources, therefore patents give them the necessary time to bring their products to market. However I never found that argument to be believable. Big companies have such a vast patents portfolio that it's impossible for small companies that try to create a product to not infringe on anything. So what happens many times in practice are actually cross-licensing deals. Therefore small companies developing some innovative algorithm or technology are better off keeping it a trade secret until launch.
aglavine 8y ago
I am as against patents as anybody else, but I wish that people talk more about the original idea behind it: if next-door wealthy guy can copy everything you invent, then there is few incentive if any to create anything new.
- plokiju 8y ago
  That argument has always felt like it came out of economics 101. Maybe in a world where everyone is a rational economic actor motivated only by maximizing profits, people wouldn't make anything new without a patent. In the real world, open source and open research communities have no shortage of innovation, even without being able to place artificial blocks on the competition. It turns out, creator's motivations are more complicated than making money alone. In my opinion, innovation might move a bit slower without the money injections from VCs who can be confident they can get patents and a safe ROI, but I think we'd be better off in the long run if we allowed creators to build off past ideas without the fear of being sued.
  - setr 8y ago
    Even with rational actors, it doesn't really hold. You still have to innovate, because if you go stagnant and the competition does innovate, you're fucked. At the very least, you have to be capable of constantly updating your copies to match the competition, and you'd at best reach parity (unless the cost of original r&d was enormous, and time/cost to copy was minimal), which won't maximize profit.
- dTal 8y ago
  That was never the purpose. See my comment above.

toomuchtodo 8y ago

Reasonably time limited patents are a necessary component of incentivizing innovation, without which consumers would not realize new goods and services based off of those innovations.

dTal 8y ago
There was plenty of innovation before patents. The purpose of patents was never to incentivize innovation. The purpose was to incentivize disclosure, to allow the progress of society by revealing trade secrets (in exchange for which they would be protected from competitors for a time). If you've ever tried to read a patent, you'll know this system has failed. In almost no cases can you meaningfully replicate an invention from a patent. Quite apart from which, a huge number of things under patent protection today are public knowledge anyway, or can be considered 'obvious'.
setr 8y ago
>Reasonably time limited patents are a necessary component of incentivizing innovation Ive never been satisfied with this necessity; its not like innovation would just seize without patents: innovation in processes is still incentivized, because falling behind would mean higher prices than competition, and lost market share, so you still need to r&d to at least match the competition, let alone best it. Innovation in consumer products is still incentivized, by first movers effect, though perhaps the easiest copied things are lost (ie plastic lids might be too easy to copy design updates). Innovation in software obviously wont stop, and shenzhen succeeds in electronics with lax (absent?) patent/copyright law. The primary innovation patents might be necessary for is a small company taking on a larger one, and needing to protect its design while it gets itself going.... but in practice, it proposed hinders innovation there more than it helps. Patents, I think, are about essentially open-sourcing the design of things, and the incentive to do so is a temporary, gov-enforced monopoly. If theres any idea about innovation, its in the long-term, as 5,10,20 years from now, we can read up on these ideas and build on top of them, instead of seeing them lost in time with the company's demise.
- bad_user 8y ago
  One argument is that small companies can't out-compete big companies in efficiency due to lack of resources, therefore patents give them the necessary time to bring their products to market. However I never found that argument to be believable. Big companies have such a vast patents portfolio that it's impossible for small companies that try to create a product to not infringe on anything. So what happens many times in practice are actually cross-licensing deals. Therefore small companies developing some innovative algorithm or technology are better off keeping it a trade secret until launch.

aglavine 8y ago

I am as against patents as anybody else, but I wish that people talk more about the original idea behind it: if next-door wealthy guy can copy everything you invent, then there is few incentive if any to create anything new.

plokiju 8y ago
That argument has always felt like it came out of economics 101. Maybe in a world where everyone is a rational economic actor motivated only by maximizing profits, people wouldn't make anything new without a patent. In the real world, open source and open research communities have no shortage of innovation, even without being able to place artificial blocks on the competition. It turns out, creator's motivations are more complicated than making money alone. In my opinion, innovation might move a bit slower without the money injections from VCs who can be confident they can get patents and a safe ROI, but I think we'd be better off in the long run if we allowed creators to build off past ideas without the fear of being sued.
- setr 8y ago
  Even with rational actors, it doesn't really hold. You still have to innovate, because if you go stagnant and the competition does innovate, you're fucked. At the very least, you have to be capable of constantly updating your copies to match the competition, and you'd at best reach parity (unless the cost of original r&d was enormous, and time/cost to copy was minimal), which won't maximize profit.
dTal 8y ago
That was never the purpose. See my comment above.