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What you're proposing is how patents are supposed to work. The original proposition is that you get time-limited legal protection in exchange for putting your i
by majewsky 3y ago
What you're proposing is how patents are supposed to work. The original proposition is that you get time-limited legal protection in exchange for putting your invention in the commons. Of course this has been subverted e.g. by trash patents esp. in the software area where the description just says the equivalent of "magic happens here" on step 17.
- kiba 3y agoIt doesn't require trash patents. It just require engineers turned entrepreneurs wasting their time in court trying to enforce claim or testifying on behalf of their investors to enforce claim. Time spent in court is time not spent on engineering. Even if these entrepreneurs were successful, now you have a 20 years monopoly. That's not without cost to the economy at large. That's even assuming patents are necessary to disclose secrets. We have companies that specialize in benchmarking and reverse engineering products. Then why are the hell we need patents as soon as the product is available on the market and someone can duplicate it? If you have trade secrets to protect, why the hell would you leak it and hope that the arduous process of enforcing your patent claims would pay itself back? Lawyers are expensive.