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Not OP but what you’re saying is absolutely true. But first someone has to invent it. Nobody’s gonna spend a few thousand or million dollars to invent somethin

Not OP but what you’re saying is absolutely true. But first someone has to invent it. Nobody’s gonna spend a few thousand or million dollars to invent something unless they get their money and more back, so that’s the point of patents. And if they patent something and don’t capitalize on it enough, that’s their loss, because they had to detail their invention in their patent application and that’s public information. Patents last only 20 years and for most industries, that’s not very long. (That said, I think software patents are a different beast. Because 20 years in software engineering is like 100 years in civil engineering, for example, since software engineering is like a few thousand years younger discipline than civil.)

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
Actually I think patents do far more harm than good in our economy. In aggregate they slow down innovation significantly by carving a huge moat around every new advancement. Without patents, there’s still loads of natural incentives to innovate. The difference is that instead of fewer larger leaps, there would be many more smaller leaps. You can always make money if you develop a new technology in secret and then start selling it before your competitors have any chance of going in to production. And then there’s always reason to support public investment in research. But patents take new innovations and then legally prevent the hundreds of potential innovators who would have built on that idea and improved it from going anywhere near it. Most innovation is incremental and with patents, that innovation is blocked from the market. This is a huge loss for our economy. The only singular function of a patent is to prevent innovation. (Legally, that is all they do.) The idea that the follow on effect of this restriction is a net gain in innovation is always taken on faith. It’s a story told over and over again. But when you look at things like open source, you can see how many of the arguments for patents simply aren’t true.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Actually I think patents do far more harm than good in our economy. How so? Nobody would bother investing in R&D if after all their labor and toil, someone else would be legally allowed to copy it for free and get all the profits without having had any of the expenses and risk that come with hardware R&D. The (US)patent system has its flaws, but without one it would be even worse.
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    > Nobody would bother investing in R&D if after all their labor and toil, someone else would be legally allowed to copy it for free and get all the profits without having had any of the expenses and risk that come with hardware R&D. People say this all the time without presenting any evidence, as if it is common sense. I don’t actually think this is correct! Of course the character of investment would change. Instead of a small number of large investments, we would see a large number of smaller investments. If your competition is churning out some widget and you can make a $10,000 investment in your factory to lower your production costs below theirs and out compete them, you will make that investment. My point is that I believe in this case, natural market mechanisms are adequate to stimulate investment. Meanwhile proponents of patents must justify the enormous cost to society caused by heavily restricting innovation with legal penalties, building a 20 year moat around every new invention. That massively hampers incremental process, and raises the cost required for investments to succeed. Without patents, smaller incremental investments will pay off, but there will be much more competition. Unless you think markets cannot function without the massive government intervention which is intellectual property restrictions. And heck don’t take my word for it. The folks at the free market Mises Institute hate IP restrictions: https://youtu.be/cWShFz4d2RY?si=z9EmhyFFyUl_-vu4 https://youtu.be/cWShFz4d2RY?si=z9EmhyFFyUl_-vu4
    - wayfinder 3y ago
      There will always be investment. But it’s not black and white. Some people will do things for $10, others $20, others $50. We all have a different price. With patents, it’s basically offering $50 so you get the most people doing it as possible. If we did away with patents, it would be like offering $20. Sure, R&D will still happen… just less.
      - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
        It's not just doing one thing. Innovators who succeed at getting a patent might get more money for their innovation. But now only one person or org can legally make incremental improvements to those ideas. Without patents, the value per innovation might be lower to an individual innovator, but there are more innovations to be made because everything is on the table. You are not just saying "you get $50 for this innovation" you are additionally saying "this innovation is now off limits for 20 years", and there may be hundreds of potential innovators who would have invested in improvements which have been legally barred from doing so. My classic example is the 3D printer. They were $50,000 when first sold under patent, then 13 years later they were $25,000 still under patent. Then the patents expired and within 3 years they were under $2000. Ten years after patent expiration they were $250. So the price dropped only 50% in 13 years under patent. Then with no patent it dropped 90% in three years. In ten years it dropped 99%. It takes a lot of innovation to make a $25,000 3D printer work for just $250, and absolutely none of that innovation happened with the benefit of patents. Innovation will always happen! We do not need massive government intervention to make it happen.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

Actually I think patents do far more harm than good in our economy. In aggregate they slow down innovation significantly by carving a huge moat around every new advancement. Without patents, there’s still loads of natural incentives to innovate. The difference is that instead of fewer larger leaps, there would be many more smaller leaps. You can always make money if you develop a new technology in secret and then start selling it before your competitors have any chance of going in to production. And then there’s always reason to support public investment in research. But patents take new innovations and then legally prevent the hundreds of potential innovators who would have built on that idea and improved it from going anywhere near it. Most innovation is incremental and with patents, that innovation is blocked from the market. This is a huge loss for our economy. The only singular function of a patent is to prevent innovation. (Legally, that is all they do.) The idea that the follow on effect of this restriction is a net gain in innovation is always taken on faith. It’s a story told over and over again. But when you look at things like open source, you can see how many of the arguments for patents simply aren’t true.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Actually I think patents do far more harm than good in our economy. How so? Nobody would bother investing in R&D if after all their labor and toil, someone else would be legally allowed to copy it for free and get all the profits without having had any of the expenses and risk that come with hardware R&D. The (US)patent system has its flaws, but without one it would be even worse.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  > Nobody would bother investing in R&D if after all their labor and toil, someone else would be legally allowed to copy it for free and get all the profits without having had any of the expenses and risk that come with hardware R&D. People say this all the time without presenting any evidence, as if it is common sense. I don’t actually think this is correct! Of course the character of investment would change. Instead of a small number of large investments, we would see a large number of smaller investments. If your competition is churning out some widget and you can make a $10,000 investment in your factory to lower your production costs below theirs and out compete them, you will make that investment. My point is that I believe in this case, natural market mechanisms are adequate to stimulate investment. Meanwhile proponents of patents must justify the enormous cost to society caused by heavily restricting innovation with legal penalties, building a 20 year moat around every new invention. That massively hampers incremental process, and raises the cost required for investments to succeed. Without patents, smaller incremental investments will pay off, but there will be much more competition. Unless you think markets cannot function without the massive government intervention which is intellectual property restrictions. And heck don’t take my word for it. The folks at the free market Mises Institute hate IP restrictions: https://youtu.be/cWShFz4d2RY?si=z9EmhyFFyUl_-vu4 https://youtu.be/cWShFz4d2RY?si=z9EmhyFFyUl_-vu4
  - wayfinder 3y ago
    There will always be investment. But it’s not black and white. Some people will do things for $10, others $20, others $50. We all have a different price. With patents, it’s basically offering $50 so you get the most people doing it as possible. If we did away with patents, it would be like offering $20. Sure, R&D will still happen… just less.
    - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
      It's not just doing one thing. Innovators who succeed at getting a patent might get more money for their innovation. But now only one person or org can legally make incremental improvements to those ideas. Without patents, the value per innovation might be lower to an individual innovator, but there are more innovations to be made because everything is on the table. You are not just saying "you get $50 for this innovation" you are additionally saying "this innovation is now off limits for 20 years", and there may be hundreds of potential innovators who would have invested in improvements which have been legally barred from doing so. My classic example is the 3D printer. They were $50,000 when first sold under patent, then 13 years later they were $25,000 still under patent. Then the patents expired and within 3 years they were under $2000. Ten years after patent expiration they were $250. So the price dropped only 50% in 13 years under patent. Then with no patent it dropped 90% in three years. In ten years it dropped 99%. It takes a lot of innovation to make a $25,000 3D printer work for just $250, and absolutely none of that innovation happened with the benefit of patents. Innovation will always happen! We do not need massive government intervention to make it happen.