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Here is an interesting book arguing for total abolition: Against Intellectual Monopoly, Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Professors of Economics, UCLA and

Here is an interesting book arguing for total abolition: Against Intellectual Monopoly, Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Professors of Economics, UCLA and Washington University, 2010, http://www.micheleboldrin.com/research/aim/anew.all.pdf http://www.micheleboldrin.com/research/aim/anew.all.pdf

clarry 13y ago
The Myth of the Sole Inventor. The paper describes how commonly cited "genius" inventions didn't come out of nowhere and are instead based on research and build-up of knowledge by multiple independent groups of inventors. Yet patents are often granted to one party as if they came up with something truly remarkable and original all on their own. This kills innovation and further research because the other parties cannot continue to improve on the work after a vital patent has been granted to someone. This paper doesn't really advocate for total abolition, but that seems to me like an attempt at not coming across as too radical. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1856610 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1856610
- schizoidboy 13y ago
  Good reference, thanks. I would add, for those that haven't read the Boldrin/Levine link yet, it only starts off with the myth of the lone inventor, but ultimately tackles the modern pharmaceutical industry as well, which is probably the more modern intellectual monopoly defense. "It is often argued that the best case for patents is in the pharmaceutical industry. The fixed cost of innovation is large, with estimates of the average cost of bringing a single new drug to market as high as $800 million in current dollars... Indeed, according to industry surveys, the only industry in which patents are thought to play an important role in bringing new products to market is the pharmaceutical industry... The pharmaceutical industry is a complicated beast to vivisect, which can be approached from many contradictory angles and viewpoints. We will stick to ours, narrow that it may be, and ask - how strong is the case for patents in pharmaceuticals? Is there substantial evidence that without patents we would not have the medicines we have, or at least we would have a lot fewer and worse medicines? Would the industry shut down and talent move to some other, more rewarding, enterprise if patents on drugs were more or less abolished, that is, if the world became like Switzerland until 1978 or Italy until a year later?"
- throwawaykf 13y ago
  Oh boy, that paper is a huge exercise in setting up a strawman and knocking it down. Lemley has done some good work, but this is not it. 1. He goes on and on about "patent theory", and it's worlds apart from how patent systems work in practice. His feeble connection is that practice is based on theory. 2. He cites a paper that directly contradict what he's saying. 2. a) He cites a paper to ostensibly support his theory that patent offices are pro-individual, but the reference actually says, without paraphrasing, "The patent laws do very little to prompt this view." It actually concludes that the lone-inventor rhetoric "has done little to stave off the increasingly anti-individual-inventor changes in substantive patent law." 2. b) He perpetuates the same "Watt stopped Steam" myth that Boldrin and Levine make. And to support this, he cites the Turner/Selgin paper that asserts precisely the opposite! 3. Further, regarding steam, he insinuates patent law didn't work as expected because Watt's patents promoted steam research by forcing workarounds. In fact, innovation through forced workaround has long been a known (though possibly post-facto) rationalization of the patent system. 4. All the examples he gives of "multiple independent invention" are actually examples of multiple individuals independently inventing different inventions. And he further proves it by saying that many of those inventors secured patents for their own inventions as well! 5. All the other parties working on the "genius" inventions did contribute to overall knowledge, but a) their work was not wasted since they did things differently, exploring the problem space further, and frequently got their own patents, and b) those inventions that ended up being remembered as genius were actually the commercially more successful ones, typically because they were either technically superior or their inventors were sharper businessmen. 6. He implies accidental inventions are less deserving of protection, completely omitting that those inventions all happened in labs or research environments by people who were actively experimenting. Throughout this paper, Lemley consistently makes two mistakes: * He conflates the broad “idea” of something with the specific implementation that makes that something work; * He conflates popular narrative about patents with the patent system; And based on these two, he enumerates flaws in popular narrative where most major inventions were not invented only by those that got all the credit. And then he completely fails to show how this flawed narrative has anything to do with the patent system, which, by his very own examples, does reward individual and incremental contributions.
throwawaykf 13y ago
My problem with that book is that the authors start it with a lie [1], and changed to different lies when being called out on it [2]. They also made some misrepresentations of how software and open source works. Just from that, it was difficult for me to take anything else they say at face value. To top it off, I just came across a reference [3] suggesting Boldrin and Levine's analysis of the dye market was inaccurate, and that patents actually played a big role in German dominance in the market. The one thing I've realized from reading a lot of studies, anyone that makes a broad claim that IP if "all good" or "all bad" is wrong. 1. http://www.terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/StrongSteamApril2009.pdf http://www.terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/StrongSteamApril2009.pdf 2. http://www.terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/WattAgainAug2009.pdf http://www.terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/WattAgainAug2009.pdf 3. "Recent Research on the Economics of Patents" - Bronwyn H. Hall, Dietmar Harhoff, Pg 13.

clarry 13y ago

The Myth of the Sole Inventor. The paper describes how commonly cited "genius" inventions didn't come out of nowhere and are instead based on research and build-up of knowledge by multiple independent groups of inventors. Yet patents are often granted to one party as if they came up with something truly remarkable and original all on their own. This kills innovation and further research because the other parties cannot continue to improve on the work after a vital patent has been granted to someone. This paper doesn't really advocate for total abolition, but that seems to me like an attempt at not coming across as too radical. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1856610 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1856610

schizoidboy 13y ago
Good reference, thanks. I would add, for those that haven't read the Boldrin/Levine link yet, it only starts off with the myth of the lone inventor, but ultimately tackles the modern pharmaceutical industry as well, which is probably the more modern intellectual monopoly defense. "It is often argued that the best case for patents is in the pharmaceutical industry. The fixed cost of innovation is large, with estimates of the average cost of bringing a single new drug to market as high as $800 million in current dollars... Indeed, according to industry surveys, the only industry in which patents are thought to play an important role in bringing new products to market is the pharmaceutical industry... The pharmaceutical industry is a complicated beast to vivisect, which can be approached from many contradictory angles and viewpoints. We will stick to ours, narrow that it may be, and ask - how strong is the case for patents in pharmaceuticals? Is there substantial evidence that without patents we would not have the medicines we have, or at least we would have a lot fewer and worse medicines? Would the industry shut down and talent move to some other, more rewarding, enterprise if patents on drugs were more or less abolished, that is, if the world became like Switzerland until 1978 or Italy until a year later?"
throwawaykf 13y ago
Oh boy, that paper is a huge exercise in setting up a strawman and knocking it down. Lemley has done some good work, but this is not it. 1. He goes on and on about "patent theory", and it's worlds apart from how patent systems work in practice. His feeble connection is that practice is based on theory. 2. He cites a paper that directly contradict what he's saying. 2. a) He cites a paper to ostensibly support his theory that patent offices are pro-individual, but the reference actually says, without paraphrasing, "The patent laws do very little to prompt this view." It actually concludes that the lone-inventor rhetoric "has done little to stave off the increasingly anti-individual-inventor changes in substantive patent law." 2. b) He perpetuates the same "Watt stopped Steam" myth that Boldrin and Levine make. And to support this, he cites the Turner/Selgin paper that asserts precisely the opposite! 3. Further, regarding steam, he insinuates patent law didn't work as expected because Watt's patents promoted steam research by forcing workarounds. In fact, innovation through forced workaround has long been a known (though possibly post-facto) rationalization of the patent system. 4. All the examples he gives of "multiple independent invention" are actually examples of multiple individuals independently inventing different inventions. And he further proves it by saying that many of those inventors secured patents for their own inventions as well! 5. All the other parties working on the "genius" inventions did contribute to overall knowledge, but a) their work was not wasted since they did things differently, exploring the problem space further, and frequently got their own patents, and b) those inventions that ended up being remembered as genius were actually the commercially more successful ones, typically because they were either technically superior or their inventors were sharper businessmen. 6. He implies accidental inventions are less deserving of protection, completely omitting that those inventions all happened in labs or research environments by people who were actively experimenting. Throughout this paper, Lemley consistently makes two mistakes: * He conflates the broad “idea” of something with the specific implementation that makes that something work; * He conflates popular narrative about patents with the patent system; And based on these two, he enumerates flaws in popular narrative where most major inventions were not invented only by those that got all the credit. And then he completely fails to show how this flawed narrative has anything to do with the patent system, which, by his very own examples, does reward individual and incremental contributions.

throwawaykf 13y ago

My problem with that book is that the authors start it with a lie [1], and changed to different lies when being called out on it [2]. They also made some misrepresentations of how software and open source works. Just from that, it was difficult for me to take anything else they say at face value. To top it off, I just came across a reference [3] suggesting Boldrin and Levine's analysis of the dye market was inaccurate, and that patents actually played a big role in German dominance in the market. The one thing I've realized from reading a lot of studies, anyone that makes a broad claim that IP if "all good" or "all bad" is wrong. 1. http://www.terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/StrongSteamApril2009.pdf http://www.terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/StrongSteamApril2009.pdf 2. http://www.terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/WattAgainAug2009.pdf http://www.terry.uga.edu/~jlturner/WattAgainAug2009.pdf 3. "Recent Research on the Economics of Patents" - Bronwyn H. Hall, Dietmar Harhoff, Pg 13.