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Well, does it need to be property, or transferable? Is it not enough that it grants you a monopoly over doing stuff that will last you a very significant part o
by flipbrad 15y ago
Well, does it need to be property, or transferable? Is it not enough that it grants you a monopoly over doing stuff that will last you a very significant part of your working life? Why make is assignable in toto, rather than just licensable (so long as the right to sue is and remains exclusively the patent owner's)
- uvdiv 15y ago1) Why not? I think the burden is on you to argue why IP rights should be limited. Defending property rights is the default position, not one that needs to be supported. 2) Selling IP rights lets you get immediate payment. Instead of a continuous royalty stream over decades, a lump-sum upfront with the same present-value. This could be more convenient. 3) IP rights let (I believe) an inventor defend their patent after their death. Without transferrable IP, if someone's life expectancy is shorter than their patent's term, they could not fully benefit from it. This would be unfair to them. It would also be inconsistent that they could not transfer IP to descendants like other assets. 4) (Argument I've read on YC) Selling patents lets them be better-defended (by specialist patent "trolls"). It removes the burden of litigation from the inventor: "go to court or lose your royalties to infringers". 5) The concept of "same owner" looks silly when IP is owned by businesses, rather than individuals.