4 ms·
US patents last 20 years with design patents lasting 14 years. Whilst copyright and patents aren't directly comparable (design patents come close) it's hard to
by tekacs 13y ago
US patents last 20 years with design patents lasting 14 years. Whilst copyright and patents aren't directly comparable (design patents come close) it's hard to see how the size of this disparity makes any sense.
Engineers keep creating their entire lives, if they can help it. Why incentivise artists to capitalise endlessly on their 'one big break'? :/
Edit: or indeed by endlessly charging licensing fees for their particular idea, which is inexplicably considered to be tremendously more timeless than a similar concept in engineering. :/
- SEMW 13y agoIMO, the length of utility patents should be guarded way more jealously than the length of copyright. Unlike copyright, a patent gives you a true monopoly over its subject - you can prevent other people from using an idea even if they came up with it independently. At their worst, patents can stifle further developments in a field. Copyright, even with a ridiculously long term, at least has the property that you can't use it to stop other people doing things independently, so it can't block whole fields in the same way. So the length disparity isn't necessarily unjustifiable.