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Being the (literally?) Devil's Advocate... Can we imagine a situation where a company has created something truly novel, and chooses to sell their patent rathe
by mathattack 12y ago
Being the (literally?) Devil's Advocate... Can we imagine a situation where a company has created something truly novel, and chooses to sell their patent rather than build it out? There will be a period where it isn't being used for anything.
For example - let's say I come up with a much better way to make steel for cars. I patent it right away. Since I don't own a carmaker, it will take a while for me to sell or license it, and perhaps 4 or 5 years for an auto maker to actually use it.
Again, just being the Devil's Advocate.
- trhway 12y agopatents were a way to encourage disclosure of inventions. That objective is now obsolete as pretty much anything can be reverse engineered quickly. So patents morphed into pure rent-seeking tool. One can easily see that the idea that patents encourage inventions is just plain wrong - just imagine what would happen if patents were abolished - would inventions stop happening?
- mathattack 12y agoInventions wouldn't, but perhaps some kinds of basic research would stop. I don't see this happening in software, but perhaps in Pharma. It's so easy to create a generic, that there wouldn't be any incentive to create something new. At this point we would need the government to fund, and decide what gets funded.