Imagine you are an inventor and come up with a brilliant new thing, and start a business to sell it. You even bring in people to help manufacture and make them a co-op. Doing everything ethically right. Selling a quality product that people want.
Then a multinational conglomerate sees it is selling well and they use their immense resources to scale up production, produce and sell it for half the price you can.
You and your co-op go out of business and megacorps shareholders pocket even more dividends.
Thats why patents should exist in a capitalist hellscape.
That argument proves the problem is scale and market power, not lack of patents.
Giving everyone a legal weapon sounds fair in theory, but in practice the biggest companies have the best lawyers, the biggest patent portfolios, and the most money to litigate. Patents often become a moat for incumbents, not a shield for small inventors.
A pro-market answer would be: reduce barriers to entry, punish fraud, enforce contracts, maybe protect trade secrets narrowly, but don’t ban competitors from building better versions.
1 year limit if not actively being used for a product in production.
10yr total limit.
Something like a video game mechanic should be limited to 2 years from first use.
Patents should be a limited way to protect and support innovation. Patent hoarding needs to be stopped.
Drug patents should have same limitations unless its something the government deems too critical, and then the company should be reimbursed for their research costs and the patent killed.
Imagine you are an inventor and come up with a brilliant new thing, and start a business to sell it. You even bring in people to help manufacture and make them a co-op. Doing everything ethically right. Selling a quality product that people want.
Then a multinational conglomerate sees it is selling well and they use their immense resources to scale up production, produce and sell it for half the price you can.
You and your co-op go out of business and megacorps shareholders pocket even more dividends.
Thats why patents should exist in a capitalist hellscape.
That argument proves the problem is scale and market power, not lack of patents.
Giving everyone a legal weapon sounds fair in theory, but in practice the biggest companies have the best lawyers, the biggest patent portfolios, and the most money to litigate. Patents often become a moat for incumbents, not a shield for small inventors.
A pro-market answer would be: reduce barriers to entry, punish fraud, enforce contracts, maybe protect trade secrets narrowly, but don’t ban competitors from building better versions.
I still think the patents need limitations.
1 year limit if not actively being used for a product in production.
10yr total limit.
Something like a video game mechanic should be limited to 2 years from first use.
Patents should be a limited way to protect and support innovation. Patent hoarding needs to be stopped.
Drug patents should have same limitations unless its something the government deems too critical, and then the company should be reimbursed for their research costs and the patent killed.