4 ms·

F.A. Hayek Denounces The Patent System

25 points by tenpoundhammer 14y ago

KevinEldon 14y ago
I think 'denounced' might be a useful change to this title since Hayek made this denouncement in 1944 and died in 1992. He hasn't changed his position. That said, I appreciate the post and agree with Hayek in that patent law and corporate law should be very carefully governed so that advantage isn't given to the wealthy and the connected who can afford political and/or legal advantage (I may be injecting a lot into Hayek's rationale).
- jlarocco 14y ago
  FWIW, Hayek was a "classical liberal." [1] It's more likely he wanted to get rid of the laws creating patents and corporations, than he wanted them to be highly governed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
  - tenpoundhammer 14y ago
    If you read the road to serfdom, you would see he was a very reasonable thinker often making room for necessary intervention. He rarely makes a case for out-rightly abolishing anything. Rather he carefully chooses to say that we must be highly analytical and skeptical of all things the government does. Especially in terms of regulation, taxes, laws, and programs.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - andrewcooke 14y ago
      btw, if anyone is interested, one of the best books i have ever read is hayek's challenge (a bio) - http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo3624545.html http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo362... i was not (and am not) a fan of his economics (at least as seen in current cartoon-like views looking back), and cannot remember why i started reading the book, but it really is excellent (very well written bio with a fascinating subject). and yes, he was a very smart guy who adapted his views as necessary.
  - dllthomas 14y ago
    Um, "the laws should be carefully governed" and "the institutions should be highly governed" aren't the same position; they're more or less orthogonal.
001sky 14y ago
F.A. Hayek a prominent economist and political thinker... wrote the following in 1944 -- Title Mod (1944)
vijayboyapati 14y ago
I like Kinsella's book on this subject which has much deeper critique of the harm caused by intellectual "property", which is broader than the damage done by software patents alone: http://mises.org/books/against.pdf http://mises.org/books/against.pdf
smokeyj 14y ago
I was just discussing the merits of IP with my dad, who happens to support it. His reasons for supporting IP was mainly to support the "little guy" who managed to come up with an invention. I can't imagine living in a society where patents don't exist, and someone comes along and says "Hey guys! Let's grant legal monopolies on ideas!". It seems like it would take some serious propaganda to get people like my dad to support IP.
- jivatmanx 14y ago
  The little guy has only have one, or at most, a handful of patents, while the big guy has thousands, along with a large legal department that works 24/7 on patent lawsuits. The only people that really benefit from patents are lawyers, and trolls (who are all lawyers).
- btilly 14y ago
  Ask your dad to cite some instances of little guys who benefited from the patent system working as designed. I would then direct his attention to the case of Robert Kearns. (See http://www.me.utexas.edu/~me179/topics/patents/case3.html http://www.me.utexas.edu/~me179/topics/patents/case3.html for basic background.) Even though he was legally in the right and won his cases, after legal fees, time, etc, he still lost. (He did win more than his cases cost, but I've heard that, thanks to inflation, he actually lost money. And even if he didn't, he still made considerably less than he would have if he hadn't devoted his life to the lawsuits. "The little guy" is a convenient fiction.
  - brg 14y ago
    Think instead Dyson and Ben and Jerry's. Both were propelled as businesses as a result of winning similar suits. It is likely that Kearns found the case harder to win after waiting 12 years to bring suit. But wiki shows that the Chrysler judgement was 30M, so we have 2.2M profit from the Ford settlement and likely 22M from the Chrysler judgement. In my opinion this is much more than he would have gotten in licensing fees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns
- 14y ago

I think 'denounced' might be a useful change to this title since Hayek made this denouncement in 1944 and died in 1992. He hasn't changed his position. That said, I appreciate the post and agree with Hayek in that patent law and corporate law should be very carefully governed so that advantage isn't given to the wealthy and the connected who can afford political and/or legal advantage (I may be injecting a lot into Hayek's rationale).

jlarocco 14y ago
FWIW, Hayek was a "classical liberal." [1] It's more likely he wanted to get rid of the laws creating patents and corporations, than he wanted them to be highly governed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
- tenpoundhammer 14y ago
  If you read the road to serfdom, you would see he was a very reasonable thinker often making room for necessary intervention. He rarely makes a case for out-rightly abolishing anything. Rather he carefully chooses to say that we must be highly analytical and skeptical of all things the government does. Especially in terms of regulation, taxes, laws, and programs.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - andrewcooke 14y ago
    btw, if anyone is interested, one of the best books i have ever read is hayek's challenge (a bio) - http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo3624545.html http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo362... i was not (and am not) a fan of his economics (at least as seen in current cartoon-like views looking back), and cannot remember why i started reading the book, but it really is excellent (very well written bio with a fascinating subject). and yes, he was a very smart guy who adapted his views as necessary.
- dllthomas 14y ago
  Um, "the laws should be carefully governed" and "the institutions should be highly governed" aren't the same position; they're more or less orthogonal.

001sky 14y ago

F.A. Hayek a prominent economist and political thinker... wrote the following in 1944 -- Title Mod (1944)

vijayboyapati 14y ago

I like Kinsella's book on this subject which has much deeper critique of the harm caused by intellectual "property", which is broader than the damage done by software patents alone: http://mises.org/books/against.pdf http://mises.org/books/against.pdf

smokeyj 14y ago

I was just discussing the merits of IP with my dad, who happens to support it. His reasons for supporting IP was mainly to support the "little guy" who managed to come up with an invention. I can't imagine living in a society where patents don't exist, and someone comes along and says "Hey guys! Let's grant legal monopolies on ideas!". It seems like it would take some serious propaganda to get people like my dad to support IP.

jivatmanx 14y ago
The little guy has only have one, or at most, a handful of patents, while the big guy has thousands, along with a large legal department that works 24/7 on patent lawsuits. The only people that really benefit from patents are lawyers, and trolls (who are all lawyers).
btilly 14y ago
Ask your dad to cite some instances of little guys who benefited from the patent system working as designed. I would then direct his attention to the case of Robert Kearns. (See http://www.me.utexas.edu/~me179/topics/patents/case3.html http://www.me.utexas.edu/~me179/topics/patents/case3.html for basic background.) Even though he was legally in the right and won his cases, after legal fees, time, etc, he still lost. (He did win more than his cases cost, but I've heard that, thanks to inflation, he actually lost money. And even if he didn't, he still made considerably less than he would have if he hadn't devoted his life to the lawsuits. "The little guy" is a convenient fiction.
- brg 14y ago
  Think instead Dyson and Ben and Jerry's. Both were propelled as businesses as a result of winning similar suits. It is likely that Kearns found the case harder to win after waiting 12 years to bring suit. But wiki shows that the Chrysler judgement was 30M, so we have 2.2M profit from the Ford settlement and likely 22M from the Chrysler judgement. In my opinion this is much more than he would have gotten in licensing fees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns
14y ago