4 ms·

Why 20 years? That's entirely arbitrary. Regarding your point about commerce, and the 'lameness' of an arbitrary class of competition, libertarians should encou

Why 20 years? That's entirely arbitrary. Regarding your point about commerce, and the 'lameness' of an arbitrary class of competition, libertarians should encourage economic competition. Why does it suddenly become "lame" when a competitor "steals" someone's idea? Implementation is just as important as imagination. If another guy can beat you to the market even after you have the innovator's head start, you deserve to lose.

showerst 13y ago
I think it's because in the modern (say, post 1900) world, many inventions that increase utility (both for individuals and for everyone as a whole) cost a ton of money to research. If your competition can instantly use that research, you may not recoup your costs, and thus have no incentive to do it in the first place. Drug patents are a clear example of this (although you might argue that altruism can also be a motive for researching drugs, in which case think jet engines or something). Both individual and global welfare are improved if the drug is researched, but it won't happen without a government incentive; a drug has to be sold well above it's cost to produce + a small margin to recoup research costs, but it's possible for the competition to copy a drug once it's out and sell it for costs + a small margin and make a big profit. 20 years is arbitrary. In theory it's the number that the people come to as the best balance of allowing costs to be recouped without unduly hurting global utility due to monopoly, in reality it's a consequence of where lobbying takes us.
- JamesArgo 13y ago
  In general, I think patents slow innovation. My intuition is trade secrets would work well enough for most industries. It usually takes a significant amount of time to reverse engineer a product, and in doing so one might gain new insights into how said product can be improved. Drugs are an exception, I admit, but I don't think most of the innovation in medicine this century will be in easily-synthesized drugs as we understand them.
  - showerst 13y ago
    I think I agree with you, but I'm not so sure on the difficulties of reverse engineering. Small electronics are a good example to both our points; once a new device hits a factory in china it's as good as pirated (sometimes it's pirated in the same factory after hours!), but that hasn't terribly hurt the companies cranking out cheap USB drives, and companies like Apple have just moved way the up value chain. I do think they have significant use for things like engines and heavy equipment, where (everything but the metallurgy) is reversible, but they take $BN investments. Software patents (and really all 'business method') patents are total trash, if only because the USPTO can't possibly keep up with the pace, so people get patents for linked lists (in the 90s!) and shopping carts and such.
TallGuyShort 13y ago
Yeah - I don't disagree on any particular point with you. My main point is that a certain degree of entitlement to use your original idea exclusively should inherently exist, and that the government would be protecting that right, not granting it. But 20 years? Yeah I absolutely agree - arbitrary, and way longer than it should be.

showerst 13y ago

I think it's because in the modern (say, post 1900) world, many inventions that increase utility (both for individuals and for everyone as a whole) cost a ton of money to research. If your competition can instantly use that research, you may not recoup your costs, and thus have no incentive to do it in the first place. Drug patents are a clear example of this (although you might argue that altruism can also be a motive for researching drugs, in which case think jet engines or something). Both individual and global welfare are improved if the drug is researched, but it won't happen without a government incentive; a drug has to be sold well above it's cost to produce + a small margin to recoup research costs, but it's possible for the competition to copy a drug once it's out and sell it for costs + a small margin and make a big profit. 20 years is arbitrary. In theory it's the number that the people come to as the best balance of allowing costs to be recouped without unduly hurting global utility due to monopoly, in reality it's a consequence of where lobbying takes us.

JamesArgo 13y ago
In general, I think patents slow innovation. My intuition is trade secrets would work well enough for most industries. It usually takes a significant amount of time to reverse engineer a product, and in doing so one might gain new insights into how said product can be improved. Drugs are an exception, I admit, but I don't think most of the innovation in medicine this century will be in easily-synthesized drugs as we understand them.
- showerst 13y ago
  I think I agree with you, but I'm not so sure on the difficulties of reverse engineering. Small electronics are a good example to both our points; once a new device hits a factory in china it's as good as pirated (sometimes it's pirated in the same factory after hours!), but that hasn't terribly hurt the companies cranking out cheap USB drives, and companies like Apple have just moved way the up value chain. I do think they have significant use for things like engines and heavy equipment, where (everything but the metallurgy) is reversible, but they take $BN investments. Software patents (and really all 'business method') patents are total trash, if only because the USPTO can't possibly keep up with the pace, so people get patents for linked lists (in the 90s!) and shopping carts and such.

TallGuyShort 13y ago

Yeah - I don't disagree on any particular point with you. My main point is that a certain degree of entitlement to use your original idea exclusively should inherently exist, and that the government would be protecting that right, not granting it. But 20 years? Yeah I absolutely agree - arbitrary, and way longer than it should be.