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From a corporate perspective (an my general belief) I wonder if making IP protections shorter in time would help this. We lengthen IP protections, but todays w
by Gustomaximus 5y ago
From a corporate perspective (an my general belief) I wonder if making IP protections shorter in time would help this.
We lengthen IP protections, but todays world technology is moving faster than ever so you'd think it makes sense to reduce them. Originally patents were 14 years. Shorter patent length would encourage companies to focus further on innovation and logically you'd think things like industrial espionage would be somewhat reduced, at least at consumer levels, as the window/incentive to steal reduces based on the lower need. Plus this would make things fairer to companies that dont steal IP vs those that do.
- lovecg 5y agoI think this confuses patents with trade secrets. You only patent something that’s easy to observe and copy, and the patent is a public record that you have some temporary exclusive rights to the invention (well at least in theory. The world of software patents is warped to the point where the motivation to hold patents is mostly defensive against litigation). If another country doesn’t respect your patents, they do nothing. If you can keep something secret, you don’t need or want a patent (which creates a public record). There’s no patent for the Coca-Cola recipe. And this is also a situation where espionage is useful.