4 ms·

Would it make sense to have the patent office choose the patent length between say 2 to 20 years? Estimating the value seems pretty much impossible, but estima

Would it make sense to have the patent office choose the patent length between say 2 to 20 years? Estimating the value seems pretty much impossible, but estimating a length seems more reasonable. Clever software trick, quick to invent, easy to capitalise -> 2 years. Ground breaking new drug/material with slow market deployment -> 20 years. There's still some subjectivity involved (but that's already the case with the current patent system), but you could try to base it on some objective metrics.

iguy 6y ago
Or perhaps it could be a fixed duration per field, somehow, so that you know before filing what you will get. It would be easy to discriminate between 20 years for drugs vs. 5 for anything software, but I guess it's tricky to decide whether something like e-paper should count as fast-moving consumer-facing tech or hard-won physics/chemistry knowledge.