4 ms·

I agree that the current patent system is broken, but there are a lot of situations where I think protecting an invention for some time is warranted. Let's say

by V__ 4y ago

I agree that the current patent system is broken, but there are a lot of situations where I think protecting an invention for some time is warranted. Let's say you invest 10 years of your life trying to develop a new cure or drug, but some other company reverse engineers the formula and sells it for cheaper, preventing you from even recoup your investment costs. This might not be a problem for large corporations, but nobody else would be incentivized to try to create or develop something cutting edge, which might have a high risk of failure or take a long time to see through.

deleted 4y ago
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brnaftr361 4y ago
I think once you've actually sussed out the expenses of patents and copyrights they outweigh the benefits. The system as it stands is a product of the system as it was designed. It's real cute and nice at the outset, but lending monopolies to individuals (corporations or otherwise) means concentration of wealth, means outsized political power, means longer more inequitous parents which ultimately gives rise to inefficient rentiers. This defeats the competitive elements necessary for a free market. Like have you read about the pharma companies that pay out generic mfgs to not manufacture patent-lapsed medication? This allows the patent-holder to buoy their prices and continue the monopolistic racket for medicines without competition. And pharma is held to a different standard. If we take your example, we'll assume the competition's process is more efficient, well they can't patent that so the inventor can fund and build a factory on par with the competition. Consumer benefits. As it stands one party could design the drug, the other the process, and they could compete inefficiently with royalty bargaining or some such, ultimately leaving little benefit to the consumer. More realistically a conglomerate buys out everything related and sets the price for maximum ROI - supported by the system which has been driven to the inevitable conclusion of artificial monopolies leveraging their outsized wealth in the political arena. Mentioning the propensity for larger established companies to buy out nascent companies and strangle their products which is enabled by patent law and has lost the collective a considerable amount of goods.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
Except they're never used that way in practise. The small startup or inventor doesn't have enough resources to litigate if someone violates their patent so it only serves as a tax on inventors in exchange for not beingnsued by a patent troll for using their own ideas.

by V__ 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

brnaftr361 4y ago

I think once you've actually sussed out the expenses of patents and copyrights they outweigh the benefits. The system as it stands is a product of the system as it was designed. It's real cute and nice at the outset, but lending monopolies to individuals (corporations or otherwise) means concentration of wealth, means outsized political power, means longer more inequitous parents which ultimately gives rise to inefficient rentiers. This defeats the competitive elements necessary for a free market. Like have you read about the pharma companies that pay out generic mfgs to not manufacture patent-lapsed medication? This allows the patent-holder to buoy their prices and continue the monopolistic racket for medicines without competition. And pharma is held to a different standard. If we take your example, we'll assume the competition's process is more efficient, well they can't patent that so the inventor can fund and build a factory on par with the competition. Consumer benefits. As it stands one party could design the drug, the other the process, and they could compete inefficiently with royalty bargaining or some such, ultimately leaving little benefit to the consumer. More realistically a conglomerate buys out everything related and sets the price for maximum ROI - supported by the system which has been driven to the inevitable conclusion of artificial monopolies leveraging their outsized wealth in the political arena. Mentioning the propensity for larger established companies to buy out nascent companies and strangle their products which is enabled by patent law and has lost the collective a considerable amount of goods.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

Except they're never used that way in practise. The small startup or inventor doesn't have enough resources to litigate if someone violates their patent so it only serves as a tax on inventors in exchange for not beingnsued by a patent troll for using their own ideas.