4 ms·

Here is another example of patent sclerosis: patents used to hinder development of steam engines in the late 1700's: http://mises.org/daily/3280/ http://mises.o

Here is another example of patent sclerosis: patents used to hinder development of steam engines in the late 1700's: http://mises.org/daily/3280/ http://mises.org/daily/3280/ . Patents have been a hindrance to technology for over 200 years.

kvb 14y ago
Patents undoubtedly hinder the development of certain technologies. They almost surely incentivize the development of other technologies (e.g. drugs, chemical formulations). It is far from clear to me that the complete abolishment of patents would be a net positive development for society.
- zeteo 14y ago
  Trade secrets go a long way towards covering such cases. Coca Cola is a good example of this working for a very common chemical formulation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_formula#Physical_security_of_the_secret_recipe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_formula#Physical_secu...
  - kvb 14y ago
    No they don't. Chemical agents (e.g. detergents) and drugs are often very cheap to reverse engineer, compared to the cost of developing them originally.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - zeteo 14y ago
      Yup. There are a few fields of innovation where reverse engineering is cheap. The patent system prevents some of that reverse engineering in a rather costly and ineffective manner. (Think China.) It also prevents companies from working on technologies they think might be in development somewhere else (because they'll probably lose the patent), generates huge legal expenses, and completely perverts innovation in a lot of other fields, such as software. Is it worthwhile to bear these immense costs for the sake of a few chemical giants and the doubtful efficiency of their research processes?
- chongli 14y ago
  Medicine (and the quality of life it brings) is a moral and ethical imperative. Why should we leave something so important to market forces? Why must the development of medicine be incentivized by profit?
  - kvb 14y ago
    What alternative do you suggest? Markets have their failures, but so do governments, etc.
  - tsotha 14y ago
    Because otherwise it doesn't happen to any great extent.
- wnight 14y ago
  If you continue all drug-funding efforts via your insurance company, etc, the way things are done will never change. If instead we pooled the money we would spend and payed the companies to do the research directly they wouldn't deserve ownership (it being work-for-hire) and society would directly benefit. Besides, it's not like patents work. Too often a real inventor loses all protection because of a filing error, and too often patents just enable squatting. If patents weren't absolutely horrible for business and consumers we'd need to figure out a better replacement. But the way it is even just removing them totally would be better for everyone except abusers.

kvb 14y ago

Patents undoubtedly hinder the development of certain technologies. They almost surely incentivize the development of other technologies (e.g. drugs, chemical formulations). It is far from clear to me that the complete abolishment of patents would be a net positive development for society.

zeteo 14y ago
Trade secrets go a long way towards covering such cases. Coca Cola is a good example of this working for a very common chemical formulation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_formula#Physical_security_of_the_secret_recipe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_formula#Physical_secu...
- kvb 14y ago
  No they don't. Chemical agents (e.g. detergents) and drugs are often very cheap to reverse engineer, compared to the cost of developing them originally.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - zeteo 14y ago
    Yup. There are a few fields of innovation where reverse engineering is cheap. The patent system prevents some of that reverse engineering in a rather costly and ineffective manner. (Think China.) It also prevents companies from working on technologies they think might be in development somewhere else (because they'll probably lose the patent), generates huge legal expenses, and completely perverts innovation in a lot of other fields, such as software. Is it worthwhile to bear these immense costs for the sake of a few chemical giants and the doubtful efficiency of their research processes?
chongli 14y ago
Medicine (and the quality of life it brings) is a moral and ethical imperative. Why should we leave something so important to market forces? Why must the development of medicine be incentivized by profit?
- kvb 14y ago
  What alternative do you suggest? Markets have their failures, but so do governments, etc.
- tsotha 14y ago
  Because otherwise it doesn't happen to any great extent.
wnight 14y ago
If you continue all drug-funding efforts via your insurance company, etc, the way things are done will never change. If instead we pooled the money we would spend and payed the companies to do the research directly they wouldn't deserve ownership (it being work-for-hire) and society would directly benefit. Besides, it's not like patents work. Too often a real inventor loses all protection because of a filing error, and too often patents just enable squatting. If patents weren't absolutely horrible for business and consumers we'd need to figure out a better replacement. But the way it is even just removing them totally would be better for everyone except abusers.