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The patent system as it exists today is a far cry from what the founders had in mind when, in the Constitution, they granted Congress the power to "promote the
by csallen 14y ago
The patent system as it exists today is a far cry from what the founders had in mind when, in the Constitution, they granted Congress the power to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Nowadays people think of patents as a way of protecting the "property" of inventors, and so patents are granted and enforced according to that principle, regardless of whether they promote or hinder progress. The usage of the words "theft" and "piracy" to refer to patent and copyright infringement is a symptom of this state of mind.
Thomas Jefferson et al would have called this nonsense. By its very nature, an idea -- once divulged -- cannot be someone's property, and it should not be treated as such. To prevent the free flow of ideas through a populace is, in many cases, harmful. (Imagine a group of hunter gatherers in which one family has patented the idea of farming.) At most, limited monopolies should be granted to prevent situations in which nobody is incentivized to create due to rampant copying. But we still have to be judicious in granting these monopolies:
"...it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention
are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"But grants of this sort can be justified in very peculiar cases only, if at
all; the danger being very great that the good resulting from the operation
of the monopoly, will be overbalanced by the evil effect of the precedent; and
it being not impossible that the monopoly itself, in its original operation,
may produce more evil than good."
-- James Madison
It's painful to see copyrights and patents today accomplishing the polar opposite of what they were intended to. But we've been gradually heading in this direction for the last 200 years.
In my opinion it's a combination of (a) allowing businesses to have too much say in law-making, (b) Congress + the populace not being sufficiently educated about the implications of copyrights and patents, thus giving more power to the natural tendency to think of ideas as property, and (c) the Supreme Court following overly non-interventionist policies and allowing Congress to make unconstitutional decisions.
- drzaiusapelord 14y agoI find this constitutional fundamentalist attitude to be just as wrong. The founders had no idea how the future would turn out. Lets just face facts: the idea of owning knowledge can never work out fairly thus patents in themselves are unethical and unfeasible. The system should just be retired. The founders were wrong about this the same way they were wrong about slavery and other 18th century issues. They are forever limited by their 18th century outlook. There is no way you can have a "fair" patent system. Its like having "fair" slavery. Just let it go.
- jay_kyburz 14y agoI think there needs to be some way to give companies an opportunity to recoup their investment in new ideas. I'm just not sure what we have now is working.
- angersock 14y agoThey have the same chance everyone else does: the market.
- lbo 14y agoWithout patents, drug research and development would have to be nationalized. The costs are enormous and drug prices drop 90% in the US after patent expiration. I would rather have new drugs and high prices for a few years than no new drugs at all or nationalized drug r&d. I think the HN community's approach is wrong: patent abolishment isn't optimal, heavy patent reform is. Patent terms should be regulated and adapted in each industry like the Fed Funds Rate, not like the 10 commandments. Software is definitely an example of where they should be abolished, though.
- csallen 14y agoI agree. The universe isn't so perfect a place that we can consistently count on all-or-nothing strategies. Sometimes we have to get a little messy to devise a working system. Drug research is a great example of an industry where patents really are necessary to promote the progress of science.
- ktizo 14y agoSome drug researchers might disagree. Open Source Drug Discovery - http://www.osdd.net/ http://www.osdd.net/ Research article on PLoS; "A Kernel for Open Source Drug Discovery in Tropical Diseases" - http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0000418 http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourn...
- 14y ago
- Symmetry 14y agoAnother reasons is that Congress, observing that patents and inventions are correlated, has made very effort to encourage patents so as to cause more inventions.
- TimGebhardt 14y agoDon't forget that most people in Congress are lawyers. And lawyers will see the patent system providing a lot of value... because you typically need lawyers to file for a patent.
- pyre 14y agoIt's not necessarily a case of "keeping the patent system ensures jobs for lawyers." It's probably more a case of, "if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail."