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The Case Against Patents (2013)

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Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#21

Post by matz1 »

jordigh wrote: post #9

I never thought that the case for patents was to increase productivity. I always thought that their purpose was to eliminate trade secrets: people are going to invent stuff whether you want to or not, but without patents, they'll take the secrets to the grave. My favourite patent of all time is Michael Jackson's smooth criminal patent: https://mashable.com/2015/03/28/michael-jackson-shoe-patent/... This is the patent…

Trade secret is becoming less and less issue these days. Nowdays information spread and leak like crazy.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#22

Post by js8 »

I am against (all) patents on the following grounds:

The article talks about first-mover advantage.. it seems to me that the case for or against patents depends on how you model it.

If you model it as a single-shot prisoner's dilemma, then without patents, there is no incentive to make result of research public. This is a classical argument in favor of patents.

On the other hand, if you model it as a many-rounds prisoner's dilemma, then even without patents, it makes sense for companies to have a strategy which makes some results of research public, then hopefully piggyback on the research that was done by others and also published (that is, mutually cooperate).

It seems to me that the second strategy can only be viable if the results of the research are "infinitely divisible", that is, companies can make arbitrarily small steps in opening up their research.

However, I don't see any evidence that the research is NOT infinitely divisible, thus it seems to me that patents are not really needed for the latter to happen.

In addition, interestingly, economists generally approve patents as needed for someone to make the first move, but they don't feel the same about similar issues that happen in the market. For example, somebody needs to explore new market first or make a capital investment in a new field - economists do not call for government support in that. This convinces me that the rationale for patents is somewhat hypocritical defense of status quo (caused by rather arbitrary choice in the game theoretical model).

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#23

Post by [deleted] »

andrewla wrote: post #11

The authors summarize as: > ... there is no empirical evidence that [patents] serve to increase innovation and productivity ... This seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding as to what purpose patents serve. The public benefit of a patent is that the information is public -- inventions which might previously have been kept secret are instead put into the light where others may use them. The cost to the public of pa…

[deleted]

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#24

Post by hammock »

Drug patents are ten years. It's common to say without patents no drug company would spend the billions it takes to bring one drug to market. But I remember doing the back of the envelope math in college on the socially optimal length of a drug patent based on the cost, profit motive and public benefit, and it worked out to only about three years.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#25

Post by _Wintermute »

hammock wrote: post #24

Drug patents are ten years. It's common to say without patents no drug company would spend the billions it takes to bring one drug to market. But I remember doing the back of the envelope math in college on the socially optimal length of a drug patent based on the cost, profit motive and public benefit, and it worked out to only about three years.

Is that assuming the patent only comes into effect when the drug reaches market?

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#26

Post by cwmma »

andrewla wrote: post #11

The authors summarize as: > ... there is no empirical evidence that [patents] serve to increase innovation and productivity ... This seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding as to what purpose patents serve. The public benefit of a patent is that the information is public -- inventions which might previously have been kept secret are instead put into the light where others may use them. The cost to the public of pa…

> The public benefit of a patent is that the information is public

They cover that in the paper.

More generally 'productivity' is being used slightly more abstractly here more in terms of general welfare, e.g. do patents serve to increase the productivity of the economy overall.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#27

Post by enriquto »

api wrote: post #16
enriquto wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the general idea of patents is good Also, there may be a fundamental difference between physical inventions, where patents seem to make sense, and mathematical theorems (and computer algorithms), where patents do not make sense at all.

The difference is between a specific invention vs. a law of mathematics or nature. The latter absolutely should not be patentable. The negative opinion of patents around here comes from the fact that most people here are programmers and the vast majority of software patents are trash. I've seen very few patents on software that are not "obvious to anyone skilled in the art," patents on abstract mathematical concepts,…

> The difference is between a specific invention vs. a law of mathematics or nature. The latter absolutely should not be patentable.

I do not understand the difference between the two. As a mathematician with an interest in philosophy, I would say that about 50% of mathematicians would agree that algorithms and theorems are discovered, not invented.

Thus, your example of RSA as a "good" patent sounds preposterous to me. The RSA algorithm was discovered, and it is a law of nature as much as the Euclidean algorithm to find the gcd. I find it honestly absurd that it can be patented (not angry, merely surprised).

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#28

Post by notlob »

hammock wrote: post #24

Drug patents are ten years. It's common to say without patents no drug company would spend the billions it takes to bring one drug to market. But I remember doing the back of the envelope math in college on the socially optimal length of a drug patent based on the cost, profit motive and public benefit, and it worked out to only about three years.

Post-AIA, US utility patents (including APIs, biologics, methods of manufacture/use, etc.) are 20 years with possible adjustments to term length.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#29

Post by wtdo »

jordigh wrote: post #9

I never thought that the case for patents was to increase productivity. I always thought that their purpose was to eliminate trade secrets: people are going to invent stuff whether you want to or not, but without patents, they'll take the secrets to the grave. My favourite patent of all time is Michael Jackson's smooth criminal patent: https://mashable.com/2015/03/28/michael-jackson-shoe-patent/... This is the patent…

Not that this would be an efficient use of anyone's time but...

Assuming the purpose of patents is 1) to eliminate trade secrets, 2) that patents must be novel, and 3) that patents must be non-obvious to someone skilled in the art, then perhaps a solution would be: take a handful of people skilled in the art, tell half of them to implement the patent and tell the other half only the end goal and see if any of them come up with the same process.

The first group would help to see if the patent is written well enough. If they can't implement it then your patent is automatically rejected.

If anyone from the second group comes up with the same process, then that's an automatic patent rejection. Even if they don't, it's still helpful information for the patent examiner. For example, if they can solve the problem, just not in the same way as the patent application proposes, perhaps the patent examiner will see that the patent isn't necessary. Go ahead and have your trade secret, the public can obviously solve that problem with or without that knowledge.

Re: The Case Against Patents (2013)

#30

Post by DannyB2 »

matz1 wrote: post #21
jordigh wrote: post #9

I never thought that the case for patents was to increase productivity. I always thought that their purpose was to eliminate trade secrets: people are going to invent stuff whether you want to or not, but without patents, they'll take the secrets to the grave. My favourite patent of all time is Michael Jackson's smooth criminal patent: https://mashable.com/2015/03/28/michael-jackson-shoe-patent/... This is the patent…

Trade secret is becoming less and less issue these days. Nowdays information spread and leak like crazy.

And can be disassembled, decompiled and studied.
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