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Something like this genuinely does hurt very small businesses or inventors who invent something actually valuable but don't have time to quickly scale up. What

Something like this genuinely does hurt very small businesses or inventors who invent something actually valuable but don't have time to quickly scale up. What I like for IP laws is as follows: When you create a protected work, you pay a very small fee. Say, $1 for copyright, maybe $500 for a patent. Each year thereafter, if you wish to maintain your IP protection, you must pay double what was paid the previous year. Otherwise the property reverts to the public domain. This ensures a period of protection if it's genuinely needed, but ensures that everything will eventually enter the public domain, especially in the case where no one is making any economic use of the material.

hamandcheese 3y ago
Patent protection already is not indefinite. It seems much simpler and more fair to shorten the protection period.
- margalabargala 3y ago
  Even if we halve the patent protection period, that is still ten years during which a patent troll can scoop up a BS patent and then simply send threat letters and rake in money, while chilling any actual advancement. Currently, there's an incentive to disallow progress. If someone does not want to make use of their own patent, they are currently incentivized to sit on it and keep the ability to create that thing out of the hands of anyone else, "just in case". If we shorten the period as you suggest, to half (for example), then that freezes that progress for a decade. If an incentive is created to put inventions into the public domain if one is not using them, then that is better for everyone. And by doubling the fee each year, it becomes financially infeasible for even large companies to keep things out of the public domain forever. A fee of $500 that doubles annually would, at the 20 year mark that is the current patent lifespan, cost a half a billion dollars to renew for that year.

hamandcheese 3y ago

Patent protection already is not indefinite. It seems much simpler and more fair to shorten the protection period.

margalabargala 3y ago
Even if we halve the patent protection period, that is still ten years during which a patent troll can scoop up a BS patent and then simply send threat letters and rake in money, while chilling any actual advancement. Currently, there's an incentive to disallow progress. If someone does not want to make use of their own patent, they are currently incentivized to sit on it and keep the ability to create that thing out of the hands of anyone else, "just in case". If we shorten the period as you suggest, to half (for example), then that freezes that progress for a decade. If an incentive is created to put inventions into the public domain if one is not using them, then that is better for everyone. And by doubling the fee each year, it becomes financially infeasible for even large companies to keep things out of the public domain forever. A fee of $500 that doubles annually would, at the 20 year mark that is the current patent lifespan, cost a half a billion dollars to renew for that year.